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RESEARCH ON THE PROCESS OF LAND USE/COVER
CHANGE IN THREE GORGES RESERVOIR AREA IN RECENT 30 YEARS
SHAO Huai-Yong a ’\ XIAN Wei b , LIU Xue-Mei c , YANG Wu-Nian a
a Key Lab of Information Technology & Application of Land and Resources, MLR/Institute ofRemote Sensing &
GIS, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059; b Department of Environmental Engineering, Chengdu
University of Information Technology, Chengdu 610041; c Department of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong
University, Chengdu 610031
KEY WORDS: Land Use/ Cover Change; remote sensing; Three Gorges Reservoir Area
ABSTRACT:
Supported by remote sensing and geographic information system, based on TM/MSS images in 1972, 1986 and 2000, the process
and trend of LUCC during lately 30 years in Three Gorges Reservoir Area were thoroughly studied by establishing mathematical
models of the change amplitude, the output speed, the input speed, comprehensive dynamic index, state index of LUCC. The result
showed that great changes had taken place in land use in study area during lately thirty years. And the programs of “returning
farmland to forest land and grassland” that the government has carried into execution have taken effects. At the same time the author
gave some relevant advices for restoration and reconstruction of ecological environment in Three Gorges Reservoir Area.
The land is the most essential natural resource that mankind
reply for existence and development. In the study of the global
environment change, land use/cover change (LUCC) has been
thought more and more to be a key and urgent research. The
focalization and the efficaciousness of the national macro
strategic decision can be guaranteed only when the land use of
our country of the process of Spatial-Temporal change has been
well learned. For that many scholars of chine follow the
international trend of LUCC research in time, opening an active
LUCC research, and obtained a plenteous result.
Three Gorges Reservoir Area is one of the weak ecosystem
environment of the soil and water loss in our country. The
surface soil of the area is barren .The ability of the protecting
soil and protecting water is very bad. During the years , The
ecosystem environment was destroyed by the quick growth of
the population and the unreasonable economic behavior in the
areas. Meanwhile the Three Gorges project and the Grain to
Green Program made great influence for the ecosystem
environment of the gorges. Nevertheless the Natural Forest
Protection Project and the Grain for green project of the upper
areas along the Yangtze River made active action for the
ecosystem environment of the gorges areas. So the ecosystem
environment of the Three Gorges has been widely paid close
attention. This study research on the process of land use/cover
change during lately 30 years in Three Gorges Reservoir Area
since the mid-1990s.And it offers policy decision and data
support for the reasonable development utilization and the
recover and improvement of the ecosystem of the gorges.
1. THE STUDYING AREA ,DATA PROCESSING AND
THE CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM OF LAND USE
1.1 The studying area
Three Gorges Reservoir Area is located in Northern latitudes
29°16'~31°25',East longitude 106°50'~110°51' which includes
the upper areas along the Yangtze River. The studying area
includes 23 counties has been influenced by water after the
Three Gorges dam be built. The ChongQing Reservoir Area
includes Chongqing city, Banan county, Changshou county,
Jiangjing county, Fuling county, Qianjiang county, Fengdu
county, Shizhu county, Wulong county, Nanchuan county,
Wanzhou county, Kaixian county, Zhongxian county, Yunyang
county, Liangping county, Fengjie county, Wushan county,
Wuxi county. Hubei Reservoir Area includes Yichang county,
Yiling county, Zigui county, Xingshan county, Badong county.
The whole Reservoir Area is 63,000 km 2 .
1.2 The classification system of land use and the data
processing
Acordding to the ways of land use, this study divides the land
into 6 types which includes the farmland, woodland, lawn,
water, Urban Construction Land and unused land. This study
selected the 1:50,000 topographic map, MSS image in 1972,
TM images in 1986 and 2000 as information source for land
use/cover. Technical line of the study as follows: ©Image
processing: correcting the data of the research area in four
periods to the same space coordinates system and carrying on
homologous enhanced processing. ©Building up interpretation
signs and image interpretation: making use of the collecting of
field and preexisting data to build up interpretation signs. As
the topography and soil types in the study area are complex,
"with synonyms spectrum, spectrum with foreign bodies" are
quite serious, fully automatic classification is difficult to
achieve accuracy, but on the need for manual classification
putting in a lot of time and manpower. For all the reasons above
♦Supported by the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee (No.SX[2002]004) , the Knowledge Innovation
Program of CAS(No. ZCXL-SW-319-01) and young people fund of Chengdu University of Technology
♦The author brief introduction: Shao Huaiyong, male, bom in 1978, incumbency Doctor, major in RS and information system of the
resources environment, land science and view ecology research, publish about 10 articles. E-mail: sdhuaiyong@126.com.
Tel.:028-81890366
