Dynamic Change Analyses on The Land Use/ Land Cover in Arid Areas of Northwest China with RS and GIS: The Case of Liangzhou County in Wuwei City

摘要

In a long period, arid area is in the special natural environment which is drought and lack of water. Land use / land cover pattern is formed stably with the arid area characteristics. Nowadays, in the arid area of northwest China, with the implementation of the great western development and the increased industrialization process, land use pattern is affected by human activities significantly and the evolution of the land use pattern accelerates ceaselessly. Liangzhou county of Wuwei city is one typical arid area of northwest China, so it is significant to choose it to be the research region to study land use temporal and spatial characteristics of China's western arid area for understanding the arid area's land use status and the national economy production by adopting remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) technologies .The research plays a guiding role for the reasonable land use in the future.