Remote sensing change detection and process analysis of long-term land use change and human impacts

Qiming Zhou*, Baolin Li, Yumin Chen

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

    22 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    This study investigates environmental change over a 30-year period and attempts to gain a better understanding of human impacts on an arid environment and their consequences for regional development. Multitemporal remotely sensed imagery was acquired and integrated to establish the basis for change detection and process analysis. Land cover changes were investigated in two categories, namely categorical change using image classification and quantitative change using a vegetation index. The results show that human-induced land cover changes have been minor in this remote area. However, the pace of growth of human-induced change has been accelerating since the early 1990s. The analysis of the multi-temporal vegetation index also shows no overall trend of rangeland deterioration, although local change of vegetation cover caused by human activities was noticeable. The results suggest that the current trend of rapid growth may not be sustainable and that the implementation of effective counter-measures for environmentally sound development is a rather urgent matter.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)807-818
    Number of pages12
    JournalAmbio
    Volume40
    Issue number7
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Nov 2011

    Scopus Subject Areas

    • Geography, Planning and Development
    • Environmental Chemistry
    • Ecology

    User-Defined Keywords

    • Arid zone
    • Change detection
    • Human impact assessment
    • Land use change
    • Remote sensing

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