Spatial pattern of land use intensity in China

Abstract:

Human activities have altered the majority of terrestrial surface and appropriated natural land for human use to satisfy their needs for well-being and survival. Meanwhile, significant variation exists in the geographical distribution of human utilization of the biosphere. Land use intensity is a useful indicator to quantify and localize the impact of human activities on natural ecosystem. However, current land use studies in China mainly focused on land use / land cover change and its impacts on ecosystem process with little consideration of spatial explicit representation of land use intensity. In this study, the land use intensity classification system in China was firstly proposed according to the different impacts of human activities on natural ecosystem, based on the land use datasets from Chinese Academy of Sciences and freely available indicators reflecting human activities. Using decision tree method, we mapped the land use intensity in China in 2000 and analyzed its spatial patterns. The results from this study showed that remarkable variation and provincial pattern existed in the spatial distribution of land use intensity in China, which is important to understand the interactions between human activities and natural ecosystem.