Study On LUCC In Typical County Of The Pearl River Delta

By going deep into research, people get to recognize LUCC (Land Use/Cover Change)is an important factor that led to global environmental change. At present, study on regionalland-use change plays a significant role in IGBP (International Geosphere-BiosphereProgram) and IHDP (International Human Dimensions Program). Investigation of land-usechange in a typical region can help avoid superficial large-scale criterion analysis, and laysgood foundation for comprehensive research in broader territory.Shunde District, located in Foshan City of South China's Guangdong Province, is oneof the areas that have witnessed most severe changes in land use in China. The district,which was once famous for "Mulberry-Dike-Fish-Pond Ecosystem" and "Sugarcane-Dike-Fish-Pond Ecosystem", became the NO.1 of "China's top 100 counties in termsof economy" in 2003, via fast-developing rural industrialization and urbanization. Thispaper sets up a spatial database for changes in land use in Shande in 1988-2003, based onremote sensing data derived from TM and ASTER. It is to analyze characters ofspatial-temporal changes in land use, landscape structure changes and their driving forcesin those fifteen years in Shunde. Also, by contrasting the variations in acreage of farmlandwith that of construction land, combined with Social-economic statistics, this paperillustrated Shunde's economic development stage & land use transition. Result of thisanalysis showed that during 1988-2003, dike-pond land and cultivated land decreased most,grassland and construction land increased most rapidly, while forest area shrunk moderately,water area remained unchanged, unused area was about to disappear. Besides, from theangle of Landscape Ecology, Shunde's ecological dominance index was falling down, butevenness index, diversity index, landscape fragmentation index, and fractal dimensionindex were climbing up. In addition, this paper ascribed the main driving forces fordiscrepancy in LUCC in Shunde to adjustment in industrial structure, increases inpopulation, urbanization & industrialization, changes in politics and economic policy,foreign investment, and efficiency of agricultural production. Also, this research found thatthe phase of land use transition adapted to the stage of social economic development inShunde in 1988-2003.