Analysis of the Spatiotemporal Changes in Watershed Landscape Pattern and Its Influencing Factors in Rapidly Urbanizing Areas Using Satellite Data

Abstract

Analyzing the spatiotemporal characteristics and causes of landscape pattern changes in watersheds around big cities is essential for understanding the ecological consequence of urbanization and provides a basic reference for the watershed management. This study used a land-use transition matrix and landscape indices to explore the spatiotemporal change of land use and landscape pattern over Liuxihe River basin of Guangzhou in the southeast of China from 1980 to 2015 with multitemporal Landsat satellite data in response to the rapid urbanization process. Primary temporal and spatial influencing factors were first quantitatively identified through grey relation analysis (calculating correlation degree between land use changes and influencing factors) and Geodetector (detecting landscape spatial heterogeneity and its driving factors), respectively. Considerable spatial and temporal differences in land use and landscape pattern changes were observed herein, thus determining the influencing factors of these differences in the Liuxihe River basin. These changes were characterized by a large increase in construction land converted from cropland, particularly in the middle and lower reaches of the basin from 2000 to 2010, causing dramatic fragmentation and homogenization of the landscape pattern there. Meanwhile, the landscape pattern gradually transitioned from an agricultural land use dominant landscape to a construction land use dominant landscape in these regions. Furthermore, the rapid growth of a nonagricultural population and the transformation of industry primarily caused the temporal changes of landscape pattern, and the landscape spatial heterogeneity was mainly caused by the interaction of complicated geomorphology and anthropogenic activities in different spatial locations, particularly after 2000. This study not only provides an improved approach to quantifying the main spatiotemporal influencing factors of landscape pattern changes during different time periods, but also offers a reference for decision-makers to formulate optimal strategies on ecological protection and urban sustainable development of different regions in this study area.

Land use/land cover changes in the central part of the Chitwan Annapurna Landscape, Nepal

“…Land use/land cover changes (LULCC) are widely evaluated in different parts of the world as a result of increasing socio-economic necessities needed for ever increasing human population ( Hassan et al, 2016 ; Reis, 2008 ; Zhu et al, 2021 ). The LULCC leads to change in vegetation cover and other different components of biodiversity ( Halmy, Fawzy & Nasr, 2020 ; Petrou, Manakos & Stathaki, 2015 ).…”

“…The landscape is spatially heterogeneous and composed of the visible features of a geographic area ( Crowley & Cardille, 2020 ; Shao & Wu, 2008 ) that is directly or indirectly affected by ecological ( e.g ., biotic interactions, ecological successions), physical ( e.g ., natural disasters) and anthropogenic ( e.g ., agricultural practices, livestock grazing) factors ( Rather, Kumar & Khan, 2020 ; Scheller, 2020 ; Zhu et al, 2021 ). Land use relates to land cover patterns, and it affects to numerous consequences ( Siddique et al, 2020 ).…”

Landscape sensitivity-based scenario analysis using flus model: a case of Asarsuyu watershed

“…In this respect, Higgins et al (2021) support watershed boundary-governed processes. Nevertheless, watersheds around rapidly urbanizing areas are highly sensitive to these changes due to their rich ecosystems (Zhu et al 2021). Although a basin is an ecosystem consisting of soil, water, vegetation and people, each basin has its own unique biophysical conditions with its land use types, soil structure, topography, climate, geology and geomorphology.…”

“…In this respect, the biggest threat to sustainable urban watershed management is the uncontrollable LUCC (Adegboyega 2021). Therefore, for the ecological protection of the watershed, decision makers need to consciously formulate and implement watershed protection policies (Adegboyega 2021;Zhu et al 2021). Eventually, understanding these processes of the landscape in a watershed and revealing the effects of human activities on these processes is important in terms of turning the relationship between urban growth and landscape sensitivity in a positive way.…”

“…Also, studies on landscape change generally focus on spatial pattern analysis, but draw less attention to the functions and processes of the landscape (Chen et al 2009). Studies that comprehensively examine the spatio-temporal processes and causes of landscape changes, especially at the watershed level, are very important but rare (Zhu et al 2021). In this sense, landscape sensitivity studies contribute to a holistic view of the impacts.…”