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Spatiotemporal characteristics and driving mechanisms of land use/land cover (LULC) changes in the Jinghe River Basin, China

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Abstract

Understanding the trajectories and driving mechanisms behind land use/land cover (LULC) changes is essential for effective watershed planning and management. This study quantified the net change, exchange, total change, and transfer rate of LULC in the Jinghe River Basin (JRB), China using LULC data from 2000 to 2020. Through trajectory analysis, knowledge maps, chord diagrams, and standard deviation ellipse method, we examined the spatiotemporal characteristics of LULC changes. We further established an index system encompassing natural factors (digital elevation model (DEM), slope, aspect, and curvature), socio-economic factors (gross domestic product (GDP) and population), and accessibility factors (distance from railways, distance from highways, distance from water, and distance from residents) to investigate the driving mechanisms of LULC changes using factor detector and interaction detector in the geographical detector (Geodetector). The key findings indicate that from 2000 to 2020, the JRB experienced significant LULC changes, particularly for farmland, forest, and grassland. During the study period, LULC change trajectories were categorized into stable, early-stage, late-stage, repeated, and continuous change types. Besides the stable change type, the late-stage change type predominated the LULC change trajectories, comprising 83.31% of the total change area. The period 2010–2020 witnessed more active LULC changes compared to the period 2000–2010. The LULC changes exhibited a discrete spatial expansion trend during 2000–2020, predominantly extending from southeast to northwest of the JRB. Influential driving factors on LULC changes included slope, GDP, and distance from highways. The interaction detection results imply either bilinear or nonlinear enhancement for any two driving factors impacting the LULC changes from 2000 to 2020. This comprehensive understanding of the spatiotemporal characteristics and driving mechanisms of LULC changes offers valuable insights for the planning and sustainable management of LULC in the JRB.

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Acknowledgements

The study was partly funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (NK2023190801), the National Foreign Experts Program of China (G2023041024L), and the Key Scientific Research Program of Shaanxi Provincial Education Department, China (21JT028). We sincerely appreciate the editors and anonymous reviewers for their help in improving the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Eco-hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region of China, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710048, China

    Yinping Wang, Rengui Jiang & Jiancang Xie

  2. State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing, 100038, China

    Mingxiang Yang & Yong Zhao

  3. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Fawen Li

  4. Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117570, Singapore

    Xixi Lu

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  1. Yinping Wang
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  2. Rengui Jiang
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  3. Mingxiang Yang
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  4. Jiancang Xie
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  5. Yong Zhao
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  6. Fawen Li
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  7. Xixi Lu
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Contributions

Conceptualization: WANG Yinping, JIANG Rengui; Data curation: WANG Yinping; Methodology: WANG Yinping; Writing - original draft preparation: WANG Yinping; Writing - review and editing: WANG Yinping, JIANG Rengui; Funding acquisition: JIANG Rengui, XIE Jiancang; Resources: JIANG Rengui, XIE Jiancang, ZHAO Yong; Supervision: YANG Mingxiang, LI Fawen, LU Xixi. All authors approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rengui Jiang.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Wang, Y., Jiang, R., Yang, M. et al. Spatiotemporal characteristics and driving mechanisms of land use/land cover (LULC) changes in the Jinghe River Basin, China. J. Arid Land 16, 91–109 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-024-0051-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-024-0051-x

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