Dynamic of Agro-Pastoral Zone Based on Remote Sensing and GIS: A Case Study of Inner Mongolia

The agro-pastoral zone is the ecotone of the traditional agricultural region and pastoral region, which is also a fragile zone of eco-environment and a barrier for ecosecurity. So this zone is sensitive to the environmental change and human disturbance, and its temporal dynamic can reflect the environmental change and human disturbance to great extent. In this paper, Inner Mongolia was selected as case study area. Land use change of Inner Mongolia was investigated firstly, and the dynamic of agro-pastoral zone was then analyzed. The result showed that: (1) while grassland were the dominant land use type, cultivated land area increased by 10% in twenty years; (2) the barycenters of grassland and cultivated land move towards south, whereas woodland move toward northeast, where the eco-environment is better than their former location. However, such moving trends of land use were not uniform spatially. (3) the temporal dynamic of land use resulted in the transfer of agro-pastoral zone, and the spatial barycenter of agro-pastoral zone had moved 38 km to east and 47 km to north.