Spatial-temporal Changes Of Meadow Steppes In DongWuQi Based On RS And GIS

Natural grassland is an important component of the ecosystem. China has the world's second largest grassland area, which account for about 40% of total area. However, degradation, desertification and salinization of grassland in China is very serious, and it has become the most critical problem which the sustainable development of livestock faced with. As the typical meadow region disturbed by human activities, Wuzhumuqin grassland has the certain fragile ecology habitats. Therefore, the study of the environment and landscape pattern changes in the region, is provided with important academic value and reference to manage and restore the grassland ecosystem.In this study, the information of the environment changes is extracted from the four remote sensing images of TM / ETM + in the year 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006 in the region of Manduhubaolage of Inner Mongolia.Besides, a grassland environment database is established. And the dynamic changes is studied by using the landscape ecology and Markov chain model comprehensivelly. The results show that:In the year 1991 to 1996, the environment is in good condition. From 1996 to 2001, the environment continued to deteriorate with a decrease of 23.51% over 1991, and the leading class from the high coverage grassland changed into bare land, and non-grassland area increased. From 2001 to 2006, the environment is improved, for grassland area increased by over 22.89% in 2001, and the leading class is the higher-covering grass.By calculating the landscape indexes in the year of 1991 and 2006, the degree of landscape fragmentation is increased. The domination of the higher-covering grass and the dominant-covering grass is decreased. The landscape diversity and evenness increased , but the proportion of the bare ground and the high-covering grass is increased. The landscape fractal dimension is reduced and disturbed by human more frequently.By using Markov chain models, the environment trend of the next 15 years is predicted, the results show that: the non-grass area is expanding continually .But the proportion of grass area except the high-covering grass is decreased. And the environment has deteriorated over the next 15 years.The main driving factors of environment changes are topography, climate, soil, and over-grazing, reclamation, the unplanned development of industry and mining. The major strategies are "to raising by the amount of the grass, to establish laws and regulations and grassland monitoring system, and to improve the qualities of herdsmen and ecological protection consciousness", and so on.