Spatio-Temporal Variation in Mountainous Landscape Changes: A Case Study of Shizhu County

Qin Chen, Yuechen Li, Chunxia Liu, Yunong Yang, Jiao Wu and Mingyang Li
Additional contact information
Qin Chen: College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
Yuechen Li: College of Geography and Tourism, Chongqing Normal University, 37 Daxuechengzhong Road, Chongqing 401331, China
Chunxia Liu: College of Geography and Tourism, Chongqing Normal University, 37 Daxuechengzhong Road, Chongqing 401331, China
Yunong Yang: Office of Academic Affairs, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 401331, China
Jiao Wu: College of Geography and Tourism, Chongqing Normal University, 37 Daxuechengzhong Road, Chongqing 401331, China
Mingyang Li: College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: The study of dynamic changes and spatial variation of landscape patterns is important to deeply understand the relationship between human activities and the natural environment. We selected a typical mountain area, Shizhu County, as the study area and analyzed the landscape’s dynamic changes and spatial variation in that area from 2000–2015. The results showed that cropland and forestland were the dominant landscape types in the study area. Cropland and grassland areas decreased, being mainly converted to forestland. Forestland and built-up land areas were increasing; the increase in built-up land was mainly due to the invasion into cropland areas, and the increase in forestland was mainly due to the conversion of cropland and grassland. Water bodies were affected by factors such as water storage in the Three Gorges Reservoir, and their area continued to increase. The change in landscape was most dramatic from 2005–2010, mainly due to the rapid increase in the areas of built-up land and water bodies and the rapid decrease in grassland area. There were apparent spatial variations in landscape distribution, patterns, and dynamic changes. Although water bodies were mainly distributed in the relatively gentle slope areas with an elevation of less than 200 m and a slope of 0°–6°, other landscapes were concentrated at an elevation higher than 500 m, a slope of 15°–35°, with a westerly or northwesterly aspect. These areas also had the most drastic landscape changes. At the type-level and the landscape-level, landscape indices showed greater variation with elevation and slope than with aspect. Finally, the variations with elevation, slope, and aspect differed among different landscape types.

Keywords: mountainous area; landscape index; spatio-temporal variation; Shizhu County (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/2131/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/2131/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:7:p:2131-:d:221433

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().