Land cover changes in northeast China from the late 1970s to 2004

Abstract

This chapter presents a quantitative analysis of land cover changes in northeast China from the late 1970s to 2004 using remote sensing and the Geographic Information System. Land covers are mapped into six classes and nine sub-classes from multi-temporal Landsat MSS, TM and ETM+ images and SRTM DEM data. It is found that while forestland and wetland were greatly reduced until 2000 due to farming expansion and urbanization, spurred by population growth, their decline trends have been revered most recently. Meanwhile, built-up land has kept increasing. Further, the land cover changes occurred primarily in areas with low elevation and gentle slope. These results suggest that the forest and wetland protection and restoration projects have taken effect. However, there remains a long way to go before the ecosystems are greatly recovered and can function in the way that society expects. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.