Evolution Characteristics of Landscape Ecological Risk Patterns in Coastal Zones in Zhejiang Province, China

Abstract

Analyzing evolution characteristics of landscape ecological risk patterns would help establish ecological risk early warning mechanism, reduce the ecological risk probability and promote coastal landscape pattern optimization. In this study, landscape pattern indices were first calculated by using multitemporal Landsat TM images acquired in years 1990, 2000 and 2010, then landscape ecological risk pattern evolution models and the spatiotemporal evolutions of ecological risk patterns of coastal zones in Zhejiang province, China were constructed and analyzed. The results demonstrate that (1) greater changes have taken place in landscape structures during the two decades, and (2) the areas of cropland, sea, woodland and water surface have decreased significantly, while the areas of built-up land, unused land and aquaculture land have increased. In 1990, coastal landscapes were mainly occupied by extremely low and low ecological risk areas. However, by 2010, the low ecological risk area apparently decreased compared to that in 1990, while extremely high and high ecological risk areas increased significantly, occupying spatial regions where originally the extremely low and low ecological risk zones located. Transition rates of ecological risk grades in the second ten years (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) were significantly lower than in the first ten years (1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000). The result suggests that people who originally urged to accelerate coastal landscape exploitation and development have started to concern the ecological environment protection and to pursue a mode that economic development and ecological protection are synchronously conducted.

Evolution of Landscape Ecological Risk at the Optimal Scale: A Case Study of the Open Coastal Wetlands in Jiangsu, China

“…Here, a , b and c are the weights of indices, set to 0.5, 0.3 and 0.2 according to their importance [20]. ${Fragmentation}_i=\frac{{NL}_i}{{TA}_i}$…”

Research on Land Use Changes and Ecological Risk Assessment in Yongjiang River Basin in Zhejiang Province, China

“…Land use is one of the most intuitive expression forms of humans developing and using the physic-geographical environment [49,50]. Structural or pattern changes of land are highly correlated with spatial and temporal distribution and dynamics of landscape ecological risk [60]. Land use changes not only influence single ecological elements like soil environment, atmospheric environment, and water environment, but also affect maintaining the comprehensive ecological process and environmental evolution in a basin, thus threatening ecological health and ecological security in the study area.…”

“…This kind of research also showed that the landscape change index was used as a way of monitoring landscape changes and therefore could be used for landscape ecological risk assessment [34]. A landscape pattern index is a true reflection of the regional landscape structure, layout, and function [35][36][37]. Under external disturbance, a landscape ecosystem tends to be broken or the stability is weakened, which can truly reflect the change in the landscape pattern index.…”

A Quantitative Assessment of Comprehensive Ecological Risk for a Loess Erosion Gully: A Case Study of Dujiashi Gully, Northern Shaanxi Province, China

“…This method provided theoretical support for the enrichment of information in the process of quantifying regional ecological risk. As a basic evaluation unit for multiple data source integration, small watersheds can ensure the unity of ecosystem structure and processes while ensuring the heterogeneity of the natural environment of different evaluation units to avoid the fragmentation of natural geographical connections [13,47]. This risk unit segmentation method can be used to effectively analyze ecological risk patterns and accurately control risk management zoning.…”

“…where LLI k denotes the landscape loss index of a small watershed k; n is the number of landscape types; E i is the landscape disturbance index of landscape i; F i is the landscape vulnerability index of landscape i; S ki is the area of landscape components i in a small watershed k; and S k is the total area of a small watershed k. By referring to previous studies [21,24,46,47], the detailed calculation methods of E i and F i were given in Table 3. Table 3.…”