Analysis of land use/cover changes and their driving forces in Yellow River Delta, China during the last decade

Land use / cover changes (LUCC) are crucial for sustainability of land resource in coastal zones with unstable terrestrial ecological system. It is necessary to understand distribution of LUCC for planning, exploitation and management of land resource in those tender regions. LUCC and their driving forces were analyzed in Yellow River Delta in China by remote sensing and GIS during the last decade. It was showed that lots of land use/ land cover changes had been taken place and exchanged between each others in the Yellow River Delta in the last decade. Although the dynamics of land use/ land cover had been affected by natural factors and human economic activities, the human activities were the main driving forces for the LUCC in Yellow River Delta. Most unites of land use / land covers had been changed or degraded with bad natural conditions because of intense human activities, poor managements, adjusted regional industry constitution, and rapid urbanization. Although fast development had been carried out for those years, some human activities which were inharmonious for sustainable development of regional land resource had induced degradation of the intender land resource in Yellow River Delta.