Spatial-Temporal Pattern Analysis of Land Use Change in Dehua County of China from RS Images

The study of land use change and its diving mechanism has been the focus since the Global Environmental Change researches was proposed in the 1990s. In the past decades, land use of China has changed remarkably in both temporal and spatial aspects. Remote sensing technique has advantages in characterizing the spatial-temporal pattern in land use change compared with traditional socioeconomic indicators (e.g. population growth and employment shifts, etc.). Details pattern analysis can be effective conducted using different temporal images of remote sensing by different stages analysis approaches combined with GIS technology. This paper investigates the temporal and spatial characteristics of land use of Dehua County, Fujian Province, China from 1989 to 2006 by using different stage remote sensing images. Dehua is representative of rural counties in southeastern China. The results show that land use changes in this area exhibit distinctive spatial difference during different periods and this significant change in land uses were droved by economic development and also controlled by the government environment protection policy.