Agricultural landscape spatial pattern analysis in the semi-arid hill area of the Loess Plateau, China

Landscape pattern analysis is a primary research tool in landscape ecology that contributes to understanding spatial ecological dynamics. This paper combines a geographic information system (GIS) and statistical analysis to examine the spatial patterns of an agricultural landscape in the semi-arid hill area of the Loess Plateau of China. Quanjiagou catchment, a typical loess hill and gully area, is the study area. A 1:10,000 land-use map of the study area was used for landscape pattern analysis. Ten land-use categories were identified: irrigated farmland, check-dam farmland, terrace farmland, slope farmland, orchard, grassland, shrubland, forest, reservoir and residential land. The patch size, fractal dimension of patches, patch elongation index, diversity, dominance, relative richness and fragmentation of the landscape were calculated. The results showed that the relationship between patch shape and patch size in shrubland and forest has a better correlation coefficient (r2=0•2927, p<0•05) than that in farmland and grassland. The diversity, relative richness and fragmentation of the gully are greater than those of the hill landscape. Thus, we suggest planting shrubland buffers in the zones between hill top and hill slope, and hill slope to gully slope to control soil erosion and to improve landscape diversity and connectivity.