Oasis dynamics change and its influence on landscape pattern on Jinta oasis in arid China from 1963a to 2010a: Integration of multi-source satellite images

As one of the vital research highlights of global land use and cover change, oasis change and its interaction with landscape pattern have been regarded as an important content of regional environmental change research in arid areas. Jinta oasis, a typical agricultural oasis characterized by its dramatic exploitation and use of water and land resources in Hexi corridor, northwest arid region in China, was selected as a case to study the spatiotemporal oasis change and its effects on oasis landscape pattern. Based on integration of Keyhole satellite photographs, KATE-200 photographs, Landsat MSS, TM and ETM+ images, we evaluated and analyzed the status, trend and spatial pattern change of Jinta oasis and the characteristics of landscape pattern change by a set of mathematical models and combined this information with landscape metrics and community surveys. During the period of 1963a–2010a, Jinta oasis expanded gradually with an area increase of 219.15 km2, and the conversion between oasis and desert was frequent with a state of “imbalance–balance–extreme imbalance conditions”. Moreover, most of the changes took place in the ecotone between oasis and desert and the interior of oasis due to the reclamation of abandoned land, such as Yangjingziwan and Xiba townships. Furthermore, the area, size and spatial distribution of oasis were influenced by human activities and resulted in fundamental changes of oasis landscape pattern. The fractal characteristics, dispersion degree and fragmentation of Jinta oasis decreased and the oasis landscape tended to be simple and uniform. Oasis change trajectories and its landscape pattern were mainly influenced by water resource utilization, policies (especially land policies), demographic factors, technological advancements, as well as regional economic development. We found that time series analysis of multi-source remote sensing images and the application of an oasis change model provided a useful approach to monitor oasis change over a long-term period in arid area. It is recommended that the government and farmers should pay more attention to the fragility of the natural system and the government should enhance the leading role of environmental considerations in the development process of oasis change, particularly with respect to the utilization of the limited water and land resources in arid China.

[1]  Wang Tao,et al.  Review and Prospect of Research on Oasification and Desertification in Arid Regions , 2009 .

[2]  Jane Southworth,et al.  From pattern to process: landscape fragmentation and the analysis of land use/land cover change , 2004 .

[3]  G. Shao,et al.  On the accuracy of landscape pattern analysis using remote sensing data , 2008, Landscape Ecology.

[4]  A. Buerkert,et al.  Analysis of landscape transformation processes in and around four West African cities over the last 50 years , 2012 .

[5]  PETER H. VERBURG,et al.  Modeling the Spatial Dynamics of Regional Land Use: The CLUE-S Model , 2002, Environmental management.

[6]  G. Cheng,et al.  Quantifying landscape structure of the Heihe River Basin, north-west China using FRAGSTATS , 2001 .

[7]  K. Seto,et al.  Quantifying Spatiotemporal Patterns of Urban Land-use Change in Four Cities of China with Time Series Landscape Metrics , 2005, Landscape Ecology.

[8]  Pierre Defourny,et al.  Anthropogenic pressure in East Africa - Monitoring 20 years of land cover changes by means of medium resolution satellite data , 2014, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[9]  Santiago Saura,et al.  Effects of remote sensor spatial resolution and data aggregation on selected fragmentation indices , 2004, Landscape Ecology.

[10]  Duning Xiao,et al.  Factors associated with farmland area changes in arid regions: a case study of the Shiyang River basin, northwestern China , 2007 .

[11]  Yu Guirui,et al.  A preliminary study on the heat storage fluxes of a tropical seasonal rain forest in Xishuangbanna , 2006 .

[12]  Osbert Jianxin Sun,et al.  Changes in vegetation and landscape patterns with altered river water-flow in arid West China. , 2009 .

[13]  R. G. Pontius,et al.  Detecting important categorical land changes while accounting for persistence , 2004 .

[14]  Richard J. Hobbs,et al.  Key Topics in Landscape Ecology: Frontmatter , 2007 .

[15]  G. Cheng,et al.  Study on the oasis corridor landscape in the arid regions based on RS and GIS methods--application of Jinta Oasis, China. , 2003, Journal of environmental sciences.

[16]  Lynn M. Resler Remote Sensing and Image Analysis: 4th Edition. T.M. Lillesand and R.W. Kiefer. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 2000. 736 pp. ISBN: 0471255157 , 2002 .

[17]  Zhiqiang Zhang,et al.  Oasis land-use dynamics and its influence on the oasis environment in Xinjiang, China , 2004 .

[18]  Geping Luo,et al.  Sustainable land-use patterns for arid lands: A case study in the northern slope areas of the Tianshan Mountains , 2010 .

[19]  Xiaoyan Li,et al.  Oasis land-use change and its environmental impact in Jinta Oasis, arid northwestern China , 2007, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[20]  Chris Jacobson,et al.  Land cover change under unplanned human settlements: A study of the Chyulu Hills squatters, Kenya , 2011 .

[21]  Lei Lu,et al.  Processes and trends of the land use change in Aksu watershed in the central Asia from 1960 to 2008 , 2010 .

[22]  P. Verburg,et al.  Linking Land Change with Driving Forces and Actors: Four Conceptual Models , 2010 .

[23]  Chenghu Zhou,et al.  The oasis expansion and eco-environment change over the last 50 years in Manas River Valley, Xinjiang , 2006 .

[24]  G. Luo,et al.  A methodology of characterizing status and trend of land changes in oases: a case study of Sangong River watershed, Xinjiang, China. , 2008, Journal of environmental management.

[25]  Sun Peng,et al.  Spatio-temporal change on township scale of Jinta oasis in the latest 20 years , 2013 .

[26]  Rusty A. Feagin,et al.  Mediterranean drylands: The effect of grain size and domain of scale on landscape metrics , 2011 .

[27]  Jiaguo Qi,et al.  Addressing global change challenges for Central Asian socio-ecosystems , 2012, Frontiers of Earth Science.

[28]  C. C. Petit,et al.  Integration of multi-source remote sensing data for land cover change detection , 2001, Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci..

[29]  Stein R. Moe,et al.  Land-use/cover dynamics in Northern Afar rangelands, Ethiopia , 2010 .

[30]  Chang Zongqiang,et al.  The changes of vegetation cover in Ejina Oasis based on water resources redistribution in Heihe River , 2011 .

[31]  John R. Jensen,et al.  Introductory Digital Image Processing: A Remote Sensing Perspective , 1986 .

[32]  Denis Ruelland,et al.  Comparison of methods for LUCC monitoring over 50 years from aerial photographs and satellite images in a Sahelian catchment , 2011 .

[33]  Pol Coppin,et al.  Review ArticleDigital change detection methods in ecosystem monitoring: a review , 2004 .

[34]  E. Lambin,et al.  Impact of data integration technique on historical land-use/land-cover change: Comparing historical maps with remote sensing data in the Belgian Ardennes , 2002, Landscape Ecology.

[35]  Billie Turner,et al.  The sustainability principle in global agendas: Implications for understanding land-use/cover change , 1997 .

[36]  Yan Li,et al.  Oasis evolution and water resource utilization of a typical area in the inland river basin of an arid area: a case study of the Manas River valley , 2012, Environmental Earth Sciences.

[37]  Denis Ruelland,et al.  Patterns and dynamics of land-cover changes since the 1960s over three experimental areas in Mali , 2010, Int. J. Appl. Earth Obs. Geoinformation.

[38]  Zili Fan,et al.  Suitable oasis scale in a typical continental river basin in an arid region of China: A case study of the Manas River Basin , 2013 .