Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

Dynamic analysis of eco-environmental changes based on remote sensing and geographic information system: an example in Longdong region of the Chinese Loess Plateau

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Environmental Geology

Abstract

The Chinese Loess Plateau is suffering from severe soil erosion. The eco-environmental changes of the plateau are believed to have an important influence on global eco-environmental sustainability; hence, this problem has attracted considerable attention from scientists around the world. This study has two purposes; application of remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques in the dynamic analysis of eco-environmental changes in the semiarid zone; and using the Longdong region of the Chinese Loess Plateau as an example, to make dynamic analysis of the eco-environmental changes of the region during the 1986–2004 period and identify controlling factors. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data at a spatial resolution of 30 m were used for analysis. Two training areas were selected in Jingning and Qingcheng counties for analysis using 10-m resolution SPOT and Landsat TM data. The satellite RS images were obtained from the Institute of Remote Sensing Application (IRSA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Each images was rectified by Albers Equal Area Conic projection based on 1:50,000 scale topographic maps after spectrum preparation of the images. To make the precision within 1 or 2 pixels, the accurate coordinative control points of the two systems were identified. Then the interpretation key was established based on the land use/cover survey in the study area. The images were classified into six primary environmental types (farmland, forest, grassland, water, construction area, and desert) and 25 sub-types using a visual image interactive interpretation method to obtain vector and attribute data. The resultant accuracy of the land use/cover classification reached 95%. Finally, the transformation areas and ratios of various eco-environmental types in the region were calculated to obtain the transition matrixes of eco-environmental types in the two training areas, Jingning and Qingcheng. This study demonstrates that satellite RS and GIS techniques are effective tools to monitor and analyze the eco-environmental changes in the semiarid region. Visual image interactive interpretation based on GIS technique provides comprehensive information on the direction, rate, and location of eco-environmental changes. The transition matrix model can be used to precisely analyze the variation and rates of the eco-environmental types and their spatial distribution. Great land use changes have taken place Longdong during the 1986–2004 period. These eco-environmental changes were driven by natural and human factors. Natural factors influencing the Longdong region of the Chinese Loess Plateau mainly include temperature, water condition, terrain, soil, and erosion; while human activities include over-cultivation, overgrazing, and fuelwood cutting. As viewed from the extent and severity of the influences, human activities play a very important role in altering the eco-environment of the semiarid region. The study results indicate a need for future research and observation in the semiarid region.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+
from $39.99 /Month
  • Starting from 10 chapters or articles per month
  • Access and download chapters and articles from more than 300k books and 2,500 journals
  • Cancel anytime
View plans

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles and news from researchers in related subjects, suggested using machine learning.

References

  • Apan AA, Raine SR, Paterson MS (2002) Mapping and analysis of changes in the riparian landscape structure of Locker Valley catchment, Queensland, Australia. Landsc Urban plan 59(1):43–57

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ayad YM (2005) Remote sensing and GIS in modeling visual landscape change: a case study of the northwestern arid coast of Egypt. Landsc Urban Plan 73(4):307–325

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baret F, Guyot G (1991) Potentials and limits of vegetation indices for LAI and APAR assessment. Remote Sens Environ 35(2–3):161–173

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bocco G, Mendoza M, Velázquez A (2001) Remote sensing and GIS-based regional geomorphological mapping-a tool for land use planning in developing countries. Geomorphology 39(3–4):211–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bricaud A, Bosc E, Antoine D (2002) Algal biomass and sea surface temperature in the Mediterranean basin: intercomparison of data from various satellite sensors, and implications for primary production estimates. Remote Sens Environ 81(2–3):163–178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brivio PA, Giardino C, Zilioli E (2001) Determination of chlorophyll concentration changes in Lake Garda using an image-based radiative transfer code for Landsat TM images. Int J Remote Sens 22(2–3):487–502

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carper WJ, Lilesand TW, Kieffer RW (1990) The use of intensity-Hue-Saturation transformation for merging SPOT panchromatic and multispectral image data. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 56(4):459–467

    Google Scholar 

  • Chavez PS, Sildes SC, Anderson JA (1991) Comparison of three different methods to merge multiresolution and multispectral data: landsat TM and SPOT panchromatic. Photogrammetric Eng Remote Sens 57(3):295–303

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen L, Wand J, Fu BJ, Qiu Y (2001) Land-use change in a small catchment of northern Loess Plateau, China. Agric Ecosyst Environ 86(2):163–172

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen X (2002) Using remote sensing and GIS to analysis land cover change and its impacts on regional sustainable development. Int J Remote Sens 23(1):107–124

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Committee of Pingliang’s Chorography (1997) Chorography of Pingliang. Lanzhou University press, Lanzhou (in Chinese)

  • Committee of Qingyang’s Chorography (1998) Chorography of Qingyang. Lanzhou University press, Lanzhou (in Chinese)

  • Dai YL, Wen TM (2000) Study on soil and water conservation and ecological environment construction in Loess Plateau. Sci Tech Inf Soil Water Conserv 2:32–35 (in Chinese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Deng ZY, Qiu HM, Li HD (2000) Climate and agricultural development in Longdong District. Meteorologic, Bejing (in Chinese)

  • Dong YH, Forster B, Ticehurst C (1997) Street orientation detection and recognition in Landsat TM and SPOT HRV imagery. Pattern Recognit Lett 18(8):759–769

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fu BJ, Chen LD, Ma KM Zhou HF, Wang J (2000) The relationships between land use and soil conditions in the hilly area of the loess plateau in northern Shanxi, China. Catena 39(1):69–78

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fu BJ, Hu CX, Chen LD, Honnay O, Gulinck H (2006) Evaluating change in agricultural landscape pattern between 1980 and 2000 in the Loess hilly region of Ansai County, China. Agric Ecosyst Environ 114(2–4):387–396

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Germino MJ, Reiners WA, Blasko BJ, McLeod D, Bastian CT (2001) Estimating visual properties of rocky mountain landscapes using GIS. Landsc Urban Plan 53(1–4):71–83

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang Z, Liu N, Zhou T, Ju B (2005) Effects of environmental factors on the population genetic structure in chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar). J Arid Environ 62(2):427–434

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IPCC (2001) Climate change 2001. In: Houghton JH et al (eds) The scientific basis, contribution of working Group I to the third assessment report of the interginnmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  • Kamel S, Christophe F, Guerric le M Dantec LV, Dufrêne E (2006) Comparative analysis of IKONOS, SPOT, and ETM+ data for leaf area index estimation in temperate coniferous and deciduous forest stands. Remote Sens Environ 102(1–2):161–175

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimura R, Liu Y, Takayama N, Zhang X, Kamichika M, Matsuoka N (2005) Heat and water balances of the bare soil surface and the potential distribution of vegetation in the Loess Plateau, China. J Arid Environ 63(2):439–457

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li ST, Kwok JT, Wang YN (2002) Using the discrete wavelet frame transform to merge Landsat TM and SPOT panchromatic images. Inf Fusion 3(1):17–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li X, Lu L, Cheng GD, Xiao HL (2001) Quantifying landscape structure of the north of Heihe River Basin, northwestern China using FRAGSTATS. J Arid Environ 48(4):521–535

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li YY, Shao MA (2006) Change of soil physical properties under long-term natural vegetation restoration in the Loess Plateau of China. J Arid Environ 64(1):77–96

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li Z, LI X, Wang Y, Ma A, Wang J (2004) Land-use change analysis in Yulin prefecture, northwestern China using remote sensing and GIS. Int J Remote Sens 25(2):5691–5703

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu XM, Rolph T, Bloemendal J (1995) Quantitative estimates of palaeoprecipitation at Xifeng, in the Loess Plateau of China. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 113(2–4):243–248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu Z, Huang F, Li L, Wan E (2002) Dynamic monitoring and damage evaluation of flood in north-west Jilin with remote sensing. Int J Remote Sens 23(18):3669–3679

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masoud AA, Koike K (2006) Arid land salinization detected by remotely-sensed landcover changes: a case study in the Siwa region, NW Egypt. J Arid Environ 66(1):151–167

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meng Q (1997) Soil and water conversation in Loess Plateau. Huanghe Hydraulic, Zhengzhou (in Chinese)

  • Onori E, Bonis PD, Grauso S (2006) Soil erosion prediction at the basin scale using the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) in a catchment of Sicily (southern Italy). Environ Geol 50(8):1129–1140

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qin Z, Li W, Burgheimer J, Karnieli A (2006) Quantitative estimation of land cover structure in an arid region across the Israel–Egypt border using remote sensing data. J Arid Environ 66(2):336–352

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Renard KG, Freimund JR (1994) RUSLE revisited: status, question, answer, and the future. J Soil Water Conversation 49(3):213–220

    Google Scholar 

  • Shi ZH, Cai CF, Ding SW, Li ZX, Wang TW (2002) Soil conservation planning at small watershed level using GIS-Based revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE). Trans Chin Soc Agric Eng 18(4):172–175 (in Chinese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Tang KL, Wang BK, Zheng FL, Zhang SL (1994) Effect of human activities on soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. Yellow River 2:13–17

    Google Scholar 

  • Tang KL, Xiong GS, Liang JY (1993) Varieties of erosion and runoff sediment in Yellow River Basin. Chinese Sciences and Technique Press, Beijing (in Chinese)

  • Turner MG (1989) Landscape ecology: the effect of pattern on process. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 20:171–197

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang J, Fu B, Qiu Y, Chen L (2001) Soil nutrients in relation to land use and landscape position in a semi-arid small catchment in the Loess Plateau in China. J Arid Environ 48(4):537–550

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang JH, Feng YS (1991) The edit principle and denotation of remote sensing map in Gansu and Qinghai. Science press, Beijing (in Chinese)

  • Wang JH, Qi Y, Tang H (2003) Dynamic analysis of the eco-environment in Hexi Aisle based remote sensing and GIS. In: Pan X, Gao W, Glantz MH, Honda Y (eds) Ecosystem Dynamics, Ecosystem-Society Interaction, and Remote Sensing Application for Semi-Arid and Arid Land. Proceedings of SPIE, vol 4890. Bellingham, USA, pp 838–843

  • Wang MX, Liu GD, Wu WL, Bao YH, Liu WN (2006) Prediction of agriculture derived groundwater nitrate distribution in North China Plain with GIS-based BPNN. Environ Geol 50(5):637–644

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wei Z, Gao P (1992) A study on the relation between soil erosion and nutrients loss on cultivated land in the loess plateau. In: Wang FE (ed) Soil erosion management and GIS application in the Loess area of the Western Shanxi Province. Sciences Press, Beijing (In Chinese)

  • Xu JX (1994) The zonality characteristic of erosion and sediment yield on river basin in China. Chin Sci Bull 39(11):1019–1022 (in Chinese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Xu XM (2005) Current ecological environment situation of semi-arid area of the Loess Plateau in Longdong and countermeasure should be taken. Gansu Agric Sci Tech 1:18–20 (in Chinese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Yadav AS, Gupta SK (2006) Effect of micro-environment and human disturbance on the diversity of woody species in the Sariska tiger project in India. For Ecol Manage 225(1–3):178–189

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang QJ, Fu BJ, Chen LD (2004) Dynamics and driving factors of agricultural landscape in the semiarid hilly area of the Loess Plateau, China. Agric Ecosyst Environ 103(3):535–543

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhang XC, Liu WZ (2005) Simulating potential response of hydrology, soil erosion, and crop productivity to climate change in Changwu tableland region on the Loess Plateau of China. Agric For Meteorol 131(3–4):127–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao CY, Nan ZR, Feng ZD (2004) GIS-assisted spatially distributed modeling of the potential evapotranspiration in semi-arid climate of the Chinese Loess Plateau. J Arid Environ 58(3):387–403

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu ZD, Wu Z, Liu S, Di XM (1992) Chinese desertification and its retrieval. Chinese environment science press, Beijing (in Chinese)

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research is supported by Lanzhou University and the Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The authors would like to thank Yao Yubi, Cheng Daoyuan, Liu Zaiwen, Li Xiaoying, You Zhiyuan, Pan Jinghu and other members in the research group.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Resource and Environmental Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    L. C. Liu & X. F. Dong

  2. Cold and Arid Regional Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    J. H. Wang

Authors
  1. L. C. Liu
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. X. F. Dong
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. J. H. Wang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to X. F. Dong.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Liu, L.C., Dong, X.F. & Wang, J.H. Dynamic analysis of eco-environmental changes based on remote sensing and geographic information system: an example in Longdong region of the Chinese Loess Plateau. Environ Geol 53, 589–598 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-007-0674-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-007-0674-1

Keywords