Land Cover Changing Pattern in Pre- and Post-Earthquake Affected Area from Remote Sensing Data: A Case of Lushan County, Sichuan Province

Jun Wang, Zhihua Wang, Hongbin Cheng, Junmei Kang and Xiaoliang Liu
Additional contact information
Jun Wang: The Second Monitoring and Application Center, China Earthquake Administration, Xi’an 710054, China
Zhihua Wang: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Hongbin Cheng: The Second Monitoring and Application Center, China Earthquake Administration, Xi’an 710054, China
Junmei Kang: The Second Monitoring and Application Center, China Earthquake Administration, Xi’an 710054, China
Xiaoliang Liu: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 8, 1-24

Abstract: Extremely hard-hit areas face frequent secondary geological hazards and difficulties in vegetation recovery, and subsequent effects have a significant impact on land cover changes. At present, there is a lack of research on the dynamic restoration of, and changes in, the ecological environment before and after an earthquake, and especially a lack of quantitative assessment of the impact of earthquakes on land cover at the microscopic scale of spatial distribution of landscape indices. Taking the Lushan earthquake in Sichuan Province as an example, this paper obtained land cover data from the study area between 2012 and 2020, and analyzes the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of land cover change frequency by using a comprehensive land cover degree index, land cover transfer matrix and landscape ecology index. The results show that the types of cropland, forest, built-up and bare land have changed significantly in the study area. During the earthquake recovery period, the comprehensive land cover index of the study area showed an increasing trend, and land cover has been continuously improved under the effect of artificial measures and natural restoration. After 2013, patch density (PD) and landscape shape index (LSI) values decreased and aggregation index (AI) values increased for the vast majority of landscape land classes, indicating a benign ecological development across the region in the post-earthquake period. The research results are not only helpful to establish scientific ecological environmental management in the earthquake-stricken areas, but also helpful to formulate medium- and long-term ecological environmental monitoring and ecological restoration plans based on land cover change patterns.

Keywords: extremely hard hit by earthquakes; Lushan earthquake; land cover; time and space evolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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