Land use change in Hexi corridor based on CA-Markov methods

Based on land use data of Hexi corridor in 1990 and 2000, which were interpreted by the Landsat TM remote sensing images, the 1 km-grid data sets of land use distribution and land use change were established in order to study the spatial pattern characters of land use change in 1990s. And, by using the Markov process theory and the cellular automata(CA) method, the scenarios of land use in 2010 was simulated. It was proved that, the unused land and grassland were the dominant land use types in Hexi corridor, and the other types distributed very sparsely. The farmland and the built-up area have increased quickly and remarkably in 1990s with the extensive reclamation and exploitation of grassland, woodland, water-body and unused land. Among the various transformation types, changes from grassland and unused land to farmland spread most widely. Regions along railways and main roads as well as big rivers had high local variability of land use distribution, and therefore they became the hotspot area of land use change in 1990s. The simulation result by the CA-Markov method has indicated that, from 2000 to 2010, trends of land use evolution as well as its rate will keep constant. Therefore, it is urgent to protect the grassland, woodland and water-body from irrational reclamation.