Dynamics of oasis landscape in inland Shule River basin in arid northwest China

Oasis is a specific landscape that exists with deserts in arid regions. In this paper, the oasis landscape changes in middle-lower reaches of Shule River basin had been analyzed. Using the Landsat TM imagines of June in 1987 and August in 2003 as the digital sources, the vector and grid landscape maps of distributions of the study area were derived. The dynamics variation of the oasis landscape in that basin was got on the basis of the software of ArcGIS 9.0, and the forecast on the dynamic variation of landscapes was executed using the software of the Matlab 6.3. At the same time, the eco-environmental effects of landscape change had been analyzed. The results showed that the landscape change with the main feature of increasing cropland area led to a series of ecological environment problem, such as deterioration of water quality, natural vegetation decreasing, and the eco-environmental system deteriorating. Human activities, especially in relation to water utilization and population increment, have gradual became the most active and dominant driving factors in the landscape change.