Elsevier

CATENA

Volume 72, Issue 1, 1 January 2008, Pages 56-66
CATENA

Land use change and its driving forces on the Tibetan Plateau during 1990–2000

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2007.04.003Get rights and content

Abstract

Rapid economic development has spurred land use change in China since the Chinese government initiated its economic reform in 1978. Although many papers have analyzed the characteristics of land use change, especially cropland conversion to non-agricultural use affected by economic development in the developed regions of China, relatively less attention has been paid to studying the characteristics of land use change affected by both economic development and environmental changes in its undeveloped regions. This paper analyzes the land use change and its driving forces in Dulan County, Qinghai Province on the Tibetan Plateau during 1990–2000. The land use change was studied based on the landscape metrics change and transition matrix of land use types, while its driving forces were analyzed according to climatic changes and socioeconomic development. The study indicates that the increase of land use benefits was given great attention; however, the protection of arid environment did not attracted much attention. The study suggests that the land use should be based on the sustainable protection of arid environment on the Tibetan Plateau.

Introduction

Land use change is closely related to socioeconomic development and environmental changes; therefore, land use change has become a major area of research, especially since the International Geosphere and Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) initiated their core project on land use and cover change in the mid-1990s (Turner et al., 1995, Lambin et al., 1999, Li and Wang, 2003). Since 1978, when China initiated economic reform and an open-door policy, rapid land use and land cover change has taken place in most of its territory (Weng, 2002). It has been well documented that obvious land use change, especially cropland conversion to non-agricultural use, has occurred in the processes of environmental changes, industrialization and urbanization in the whole country (Li, 1997, Li, 1999, Tan, 1999, Bi, 2000, Li, 2000). Regional land use changes in the eastern developed regions of China have received great attention (Weng, 2002, Chen et al., 2003, Lu et al., 2003, Jia et al., 2004, Zhao et al., 2005). Comparatively, land use changes in its western undeveloped regions have attracted little attention, especially on the frigid and arid Tibetan Plateau, where both economic development and arid environmental changes strongly affect land use change.

As the roof of the world, the Tibetan Plateau is a gigantic tectonic geomorphologic region on the earth (Zheng, 2003). As a result of the typical climatic changes and human activities, the land use change on the plateau is quite different from that in lowlands at almost the same latitudes as well as in high latitudinal regions. According to the recent study of the environmental changes on the plateau during 1971–2000, the climatic changes were mainly characterized by increase of temperature and precipitation and decrease of potential evaporation capacity (Wu et al., 2005), which was apparently beneficial to the improvement of the frigid and arid environment on the plateau. Based on China statistical yearbook, GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province has clearly increased following the 1978 reforms, especially in 1990s (NBSC, 1991–2003a). However, rapid population growth had occurred on the plateau in the same period. The aforesaid climatic and human factors greatly affect the land use change on the plateau. Better understanding of the processes that resulted in changing land use in the past may enable the improvement of future planning strategies (Shoshany and Goldshleger, 2002). Thus, a study of land use change and its driving forces on the Tibetan Plateau is much needed.

The objective of this paper is to analyze land use change pattern using a geographical information system (GIS) and patch analysis methods and to discuss its driving forces based on the climatic changes and socioeconomic development, which will benefit the process study of land use change and land-use planning on the Tibetan Plateau.

Section snippets

Study area

Located between 95°34′–99°40′ E and 35°20′–37°22′ N and situated on a transitional belt between the frigid Tibetan Plateau and the arid Northwest China, Dulan County of Qinghai Province covers an area of approximately 54,269 km2 (Fig. 1). It is mainly characterized by arid climate and basin landscape. Air temperature spatially increases from southeast to northwest with a mean annual value of 2.7 °C–4.4 °C. The coldest month (January) generally has a mean air temperature ranging from − 10.6 °C to

Database

The use of satellite remote sensing has been proven to be a good choice for detecting and monitoring land use transformation (Longley, 2002). In this study, we used the digital land use dataset (vector) at a scale of 1:100 000 in 1990 and 2000 developed by the Resources and Environment Data Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) (Liu et al., 2003, Liu et al., 2005a, Liu et al., 2005b, Liu et al., 2005c).

The dataset is based on the Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) remotely sensed data for the

Comparison of landscape metrics

Table 3 lists landscape metrics at class level and landscape level in 1990 and 2000. It is clear that land use patch types directly affected by human activities usually have a lower AWMPFD(≤ 1.30) (except for two types of natural water area of lake and glacier and firn). This is because that more human influence makes the shape of land use patches simpler or more regular. Geomorphology or flow direction of river mainly affects patterns of the patches in land use map. The plain area usually has

Climatic changes affected land use change

According to the climatic changes in Dulan County during the period 1970–2002, climatic conditions were generally favorable to agricultural development in the study area. The mean annual air temperature increased with a rate of 0.39 °C per decade, and obviously increased with a higher rate in the 1990s. The annual precipitation increased with a rate of 10.6 mm per decade (Fig. 4). According to the relative study during 1960–2000 by Chen and Wu (2002), although the precipitation in autumn

Conclusion

Rapid economic development and environmental change spurred the land use change on the Tibetan Plateau during the period 1990–2000. Land use change over this period was studied in Dulan County based on the changes of various landscape metrics and the transition matrix of land use types. Land use change was mainly characterized by expansion of the land use types with higher economic benefits and shrinkage of some land use types with higher environmental value. The study indicates that

Acknowledgments

The authors are indebted to the National Basic Research Program of China (2005CB422006), Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (O66U0112SZ, CXIOG-A05-05), Ministry of Sciences and Technology (2005BA517A-03) for their financial support. The authors gratefully thank Professor Zhuang Dafang (Resources and Environment Data Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for kindly providing mapped data and the Meteorological Information Center, China

References (49)

  • R.L. Semwal et al.

    Patterns and ecological implications of agricultural land-use changes: a case study from central Himalaya, India

    Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

    (2004)
  • M. Shoshany et al.

    Land-use and population density changes in Israel — 1950 to 1990: analysis of regional and local trends

    Land Use Policy

    (2002)
  • P.C. Tiwari

    Land-use changes in Himalaya and their impact on the plains ecosystem: need for sustainable land use

    Land Use Policy

    (2000)
  • T.G. Vagen

    Remote sensing of complex land use change trajectories — a case study from the highlands of Madagascar

    Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

    (2006)
  • E.F. Viglizzo et al.

    Land-use options for Del Plata Basin in South America: tradeoffs analysis based on ecosystem service provision

    Ecological Economics

    (2006)
  • X.H. Wang et al.

    Implications for development of grain-for-green policy based on cropland suitability evaluation in desertification-affected north China

    Land Use Policy

    (2007)
  • Q.H. Weng

    Land use change analysis in the Zhujiang Delta of China using satellite remote sensing, GIS and stochastic modeling

    Journal of Environmental Management

    (2002)
  • H.L. Zhao et al.

    Desertification processes due to heavy grazing in sandy rangeland, Inner Mongolia

    Journal of Arid Environments

    (2005)
  • Y.Y. Bi

    The actual changes of cultivated area since the founding of new China

    Resources Sciences

    (2000)
  • F. Chen et al.

    Analysis of climatic changes in Dulan County in recent 40 years

    Environment of Qinghai

    (2002)
  • E.F. Lambin et al.

    Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) — Implementation Strategy

  • Y. Li

    Subsistence and Development

    (1997)
  • X.B. Li

    Change of cultivated land area in china during the past 20 years and its policy implications

    Journal of Natural Resources

    (1999)
  • Y. Li

    China Land Resources

    (2000)
  • Cited by (119)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text