Changes of landscape pattern and its characteristics in Kaixian county before and after impoundment of Three Gorges Dam Project

The Three Gorges Project is a remarkable large-scale hydropower and water resources in the world. The project will bring great comprehensive benefits after the completion. However, as the reservoir storage completing, it also caused land cover and landscape pattern changes in this area. In order to grasp the changes of land cover and landscape pattern after the reservoir water storage, Kaixian county of Chongqing city in Three Gorges reservoir area was taken as the research object in this paper. Based on 2002, 2007 and 2010’s three remote sensing image data, and using remote sensing, GIS and landscape pattern analysis techniques, the dynamic changes of land cover and landscape pattern was analyzed with the professional software such as ArcGIS9.3, Ecognition8.0 and Fragstats3.3. The results showed that Kaixian’s land cover and landscape pattern changed dramatically due to the effects of reservoir storage during 2002 to 2010. The dominant types of landscape in the region were forest, bush, dry land, grassland and paddy field. On the Class Level, the area of dry land, paddy fields and grassland had decreased, and landscape had increased. While the area of forest, water, construction land had increased, and the fragmentation of the connectivity increased too. On the Landscape Level, the landscape fragmentation had increased, and landscape dominance had decreased, but the landscape diversity had increased, which was beneficial to stability of the ecosystem in the region. It showed that different characteristics of Kaixian’s landscape pattern changed during 2002-2007 and 2007-2010. The results timely respond the character of land cover and landscape pattern’s changes before and after impoundment. This paper provides the basis for land use of the reservoir planning and ecological landscape design.