Review on landscape pattern change of the Pearl River Delta based on 3S technology

Landscape pattern and its change in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) are very complicated. Especially, within three decades of reform and opening-up, the landscape pattern of the PRD has changed with rapid economic growth and urbanization process. With an increasing concern to development of ecological environment, greater attention of many scholars and researchers is being paid to investigating change of ecological landscape in the PRD. In addition, with the rapid development of remote sensing (RS), geographic information system (GIS) and global positioning system (GPS) technologies, it has been a hot spot to monitor and study landscape pattern and change by integrating 3S technology. Meanwhile, many studies have been carried out and some results have been obtained based on 3S technology concerning dynamic changes of landscape pattern in the PRD. However, because application of landscape ecology in the PRD is in an early stage, not all issues have been systematically explored. In this paper, the application of 3S technology used in studying landscape pattern and change of the PRD is discussed, and then some expectations are also put forward, so as to provide some necessary references and support for monitoring and studying changes of landscape pattern in the PRD.