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Arid Land Geography ›› 2020, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (1): 1-11.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2020.01.01

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Spatial pattern and characteristics of land cover change in Xinjiang since past 40 years of the economic reform and opening up

CHEN Xi1,2,3,4,CHANG Cun2,3,BAO An-ming2,3,4,WU Shi-xin2,3,4,LUO Ge-ping2,3,4   

  1. 1 Central Asian Ecology and Environment Research Center,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Urumqi 830011,Xinjiang,China; 2 Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Urumqi 830011,Xinjiang,China; 3 State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology,Urumqi 830011,Xinjiang,China; 4 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100010,China
  • Received:2019-11-24 Revised:2019-12-24 Online:2020-01-05 Published:2020-01-05

Abstract: Since the economic reform and opening up 40 years ago, land use and land cover of Xinjiang, China have undergone tremendous changes. While generating great socio-economic benefits, many ecological and environmental issues have also arisen. In order to provide a basis for future Xinjiangs land use, water resources development, and socioeconomic sustainable development of land and space planning, a partitioned and layered decision tree method and a vector similarity change detection method were used to complete the Xinjiang Land Cover 1100 000 vector dataset in 2015,2010,2000,1990,and 1975 in this paper. The evolution of Xinjiangs land cover change over the past 40 years (reform and opening up of China) was analyzed.From the four stages of reclamation (19751990), agricultural resource development (19902000),western development (20002010), and counterpart assistance to Xinjiang (20102015),the paper described the impact mechanism of national policy on land cover changes. The analysis showed that the land cover change in Xinjiang has begun to transform from a highspeed development model to a sustainable development combined the construction of ecological civilization. The changes of major land types have also shifted from rapid development to basic controllability. In the past 40 years, the area of cultivated land in Xinjiang increased by 128% (50 414.02 km2).The new cultivated land was distributed to the characteristics of water and land resources distribution. The area of artificial surfaces (construction, transportation, industrial, mining land) increased by 197% (7 497.11 km2).The growth rate was obvious accelerated after 2000, and the increase rate in southern Xinjiang after 2010 was very large; the area of forest land before 1990 showed a decreasing trend, and it showed an increasing trend after 1990.The newly added forest land was widely distributed in the natural forest enclosure and within the implementation area of Xinjiang Natural Forest Protection Project. The area of wetlands decreased significantly before 1990, remained stable from 1990 to 2000, and showed an increasing trend after 2000.The area of grassland and other types continued to decrease.

Key words: Xinjiang, land cover, spatial and temporal pattern, sustainable development