The middle reaches of the Yangtze River region (MRYRR) are China’s first trans-regional urban agglomeration, located in the center of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The MRYRR is an important ecological reserve, and its land cover changes are affected by both socio-economic development and geographical environment. In this paper, Landsat ETM/TM/OLI remote sensing images were used to monitor land use and landscape patterns from 1990 to 2015. Through supervised classification, land use transfer matrix, landscape pattern metrics and correlation analysis, the spatial-temporal patterns of land use change and its relationship with socio-economic in the study area were revealed. The results showed that: (1) the main land use types in the study area were cropland (CL) and forestland (FL), accounting for more than three-quarters of the study area. During the study period, built-up land (BL) increased, CL decreased, FL increased first and then decreased; (2) the BL expanded mainly by occupying CL and FL, and regional landscape pattern was gradually fragmented, with complex patch shape and increasing diversity and heterogeneity. Among them, the BL is gradually gathered, and the FL and CL are gradually fragmented; (3) in the past 25 years, the urbanization process in this region has been obvious, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased by 36 times. The socioeconomic variables were positively correlated with BL, orchard (OL) and Shannon diversity index (SHID), and negatively correlated with CL, Wasteland (WL), mean patch size (MPS) and contagion size (CONTAG). The results showed that the urbanization development has a great impact on the region, and the ecological protection task is still challenging. It is necessary to protect high-quality cropland and draw a red line for ecological protection. We should strengthen the construction of ecological corridors and ecological nodes to adapt to regional sustainable development.

Effects of Urbanization on Landscape Patterns in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River Region

As the flagship species of biodiversity conservation in China, the giant panda has significant ecological protection value and plays an important demonstrative role for conservation. Sichuan Province has the largest area of giant panda habitat, making its protected areas the most important for the conservation of this species. However, the habitats of the giant panda are shrinking due to human disturbance through land encroachment for agriculture and other forms of resource exploitation. Reducing these pressures requires assessing current land use and the causes of fragmenting giant panda habitats. This paper reports on changes in land-use patterns and socio-economic development in typical counties with giant panda habitats in Sichuan in 2003 and 2015, with a focus on giant panda protection areas and human pressures in the surrounding lands. We found that road construction, industrial infrastructure, and other forms of economic development have led to increases in human populations and fragmentation of the giant panda habitats, such that that the population of this species has been significantly reduced in some counties. Improving the protection of giant panda requires designing regional economic development activities based on scientific principles to provide benefits to both the local people and the giant pandas. For example, when making land use plans, the local government should consider the impact of the development of the communities surrounding the giant panda areas on the giant pandas’ habitat.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/21/5993/pdf

易扬 Yi Yang

Papers

Temporal and spatial variations of land use and the driving factors in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River in the past 25 years