Ecological effects associated with land-use change in China's southwest agricultural landscape

Research on land-use and land-cover change, with associated effects on the ecoenvironment, is a key to understanding global change. The concept of 'ecosystem services' is also a hot issue in ecology and ecological economics. In this study, ecosystem service values are used to assess the ecological values of corresponding land-use types, so as to evaluate the ecological effects of regional land-use change. China's southwest agricultural landscape has unique ecological functions; but it also belongs to an ecologically fragile zone. Consequently, land-use change and associated ecological effects must be monitored to assure sustainable development of this area. Based on TM images in 1988, 1994 and 1999, the landscape classification maps of Yongsheng County were assessed using supervised classification and interactive modification methods. The transition matrix of land-use types and three indices of spatial patterns, patch-level, class-level and landscape-level indices, were calculated using models and GIS to examine the spatial patterns and dynamics of land use in the study area. The results show the influences of human activities and natural environmental elements, and that unused land has decreased rapidly, together with a continuous increase in forest during the past 11 years. There are also frequent intermediate transitions between farmland and unused land. An index for landscape diversity shows a tendency to increase, indicating that the proportions of each landscape element tended to average. Also, the decrease in the fractal dimension of unused land reveals that the effects of human activity are increasing. Ecological value calculations show that land-use change in Yongsheng County from 1988–1999 has resulted in positive ecological effects, with distinct spatial differences.