Comparative analysis of land use/cover change trajectories and their driving forces in two small watersheds in the western Loess Plateau of China

To prevent soil loss and achieve better ecological environments, soil conservation measures have been taken during the past decades in the western Loess Plateau of China. In this paper, a case study was taken in Luoyu valley and Lver valley, two sub-watersheds of Xihe watershed and comparison was carried out between them. The main object of this study is to monitor land use/cover changes in the two similar small watersheds utilizing SPOT5 imageries by object-oriented human–computer interactive classification method, further develop the method of spatio-temporal analysis of land use/cover change by using pattern metrics of change trajectories and relative land use suitability index (R) in smaller watersheds, and make comparisons between the two similar small watersheds, taking water and soil conservation measures into consideration. Results show that combining GIS and RS, this method can be perfectly applied to make comparisons between different small watersheds with similar geographical backgrounds. And land use/cover spatiotemporal dynamic change characteristics can be preferably expressed by pattern metrics of change trajectories and R values based on topographical data. Different emphases have been laid according to their own geological backgrounds in the two watersheds and human activities have different effects on the landscapes of the two watersheds. The main change pattern is from slope farmland to terrace (322, the largest in Luoyu valley) or to economic fruit forest (344, the largest in Lver valley). R value of every slope grade in both of the two watersheds drops with the rising of slope degree on the whole and it shows that there is still much to do for people in the two watersheds in consideration that all the R values are still lower than 0.7.