Dynamic Land Use/Cover Change and Analysis of Landscape Pattern in the Hilly and Gully Region of Loess Plateau: A Case Study of Pengyang County in Southern Ningxia

The quantitative evaluation on land use/cover change as well as its influence on landscape pattern under the background of returning grain plots to forestry is significant to the sustainable utilization of land resources and ecological environment reconstruction in the southern Ningxia. Based on multi-temporal remote sensing data from four periods of Landsat TM/ETM, and combination of ecological quantity analytical method with GIS, the change of land use/cover and landscape pattern in Pengyang County of Ningxia Province were analyzed. The conclusions showed that the amount of each land use type was changed with different degrees, the area of forest/grass land increased, while farmland and unused land decreased. The change of landscape pattern was characterized as that the degree of landscape fragmentation, mixed distribution of patches, diversity index and evenness index increased gradually and then decreased, the connectivity between patches decreased gradually and then increased, and landscape shape presented irregular.