Proceedings Article | 14 November 2007
KEYWORDS: Agriculture, Landsat, Data conversion, Data modeling, Roads, Climatology, Soil science, Remote sensing, Analytical research, Earth observing sensors
Land use change and its driving factors are hot topics of global change research, and also important topics
of sustainable development. This paper selected a small area in alluvial plain oasis in Xinjiang Autonomous
region of China as the study area. Using Landsat TM data of 1987, 1998 and 2004, the dynamic process of
the spatial-temporal characteristics of land use changes were analyzed to improve understanding and to find
the driving forces of land use changes so that sustainable land utilization could be practiced. During the 17
years salt-alkali tolerant cropland, cereal cropland, vegetable-fruit land, and shrubbery, had decreased
remarkably by 78.59%, 85.95%, 92.13%, 68.43%, respectively. Cotton-liquorice land, grape-hop land,
planted forest, residential area in town, residential area in village, and saline-alkaline field had increased
dramatically. The increased percentage received the value of 2432.11%, 10103.18%, 889.91%, 222.45%,
96.00%, 44.18%, respectively. By the logistic regression, the main driving factors were derived for each
land use type. The advance of technology (fertilizer input, irrigation quota, and animal labor et al.) and
market (unit are yield net) were the main driving factors. Policy, in a higher level, influenced the land use
dynamics for all the land use changes.
