Forest Landscape Pattern And Fragmentation Change Assessment Based On The "3S" Technique

Based on the latest two Globcover databases with a spatial resolution of300m, I analyzedthe forest landscape pattern of the three regions, which was northeast region,southwest regionand south region.A forest fragmentation model was applied to classify each forest pixel intoone of the six fragmentation components, including interior, perforated, edge, patch,transitional and undetermined at the analytical window of5×5pixels. Those areas having highamount of anthropogenic disturbances were located by interpreting anthropogenic disturbance(Pfa) values derived from the model. Ultimately, a suite of forest fragmentation maps withspatially explicit implications were produced to present the fragmentation patterns. This workwas also to probe the socioeconomic and environmental drivers for forest fragmentation.Specifically, the road density,the educated degree, the urbanization level, the populationdensity and the per capita GDP were captured to correlate with the established forestfragmentation components to explain the spatial variability of driving forces responsible forforest fragmentation by implementing correlation analysis.Results showed as follows:During2005to2009, in the northeast region, south region and southwest region, Forestlandscape patches varied considerably, forest landscape patches quantity and forest patchesedge density increased, but forest average patches perimeter, forest average patches area,forest patches aggregation index, forest patches fractal dimension and forest patches averageshape index decreased. Forest internal area reduced, as material, energy and species exchangeways, forest corridor was cut off, forest patches isolated each other, which result fromlong-term human disturbance.During2005to2009,in the northeast region,such as Liaoning province, Jilin province,Heilongjiang province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the interior forest areasincreased,and the perforated forest area also increased,the patch forest areas decreased.Forestfragmentation interference increased,at the same time,forest protection measures andafforestation project were taken, the forest interior areas increased.During2005to2009,in the southern region,such as Fujian province,Jiangxiprovince,Hubei province,Hunan province,Guangdong provinces and Guangxi ZhuangAutonomous Region, the interior forest areas reduced,perforated forest areas increased.Duringthe rapid economic and social development, with the growth of population, humandisturbances also increased accordingly.In recent years, the South natural climate has changedfrequently, hail, sleet and dry weather often appeared, the dry weather was extremely easy tocause forest fire,During2005to2009, in the southwest region,such as the Tibet Autonomous Region,Yunnan province, Guizhou province,Sichuan province and city of Chong qing,theinterior forest areas reduced,perforated forest areas increased.the patch forest areas slightlychanged.the areas include the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Sichuan Basin and Qinghai-TibetPlateau high Shanshan area terrain,Topographic and climate were complex, compared withdeveloped regions,the economic development rate was slowly,deforestation wasfrequent,human disturbance intensity was strong, climate were complex and diversed, forestfire often happened, natural disturbance influence were strong.In2005, the educated degree,the per capita GDP and the urbanization were allsignificantly correlated with the forest fragmentation components. In2009, the per capitaGDP, the population density and the road density were also significantly correlated with theforest fragmentation components.In conclusion, forest fragmentation in China was primarily attributed to the influence ofthe natural environment and widespread anthropogenic disturbances and heavy traffic,particularly, the expansion of agricultural land uses driven by a huge population. forestfragmentation is a long-term, complex societal issue, which requires a comprehensive measurethat is closely associated with political, economic and educational processes to be taken tominimize the impacts of human events on the existing forests, to mitigate the potential threatsof forest fragmentation to forest ecosystems to ensure the ecological security of nation.