Abstract: Based on six Landsat images from 1978 to 2009 of Guanting Reservoir located in northwest Beijing, this paper interprets land use maps. In the analysis of this paper, the transfer matrix of land use and cover change (LUCC) is studied as a network, among which land use types are nodes and conversions between different land use types are connections. From the overall perspective of land use system, the complex network methods of degree, betweenness and average shortest path are applied to identify the major changes in land use types, to assess stability of land use system and to analyse the changes from natural ecosystem to artificial ecosystem. The findings are shown as follows. First, in the time scale of recent 30 years, dry farming lands, natural grasslands and artificial water bodies are always the major changing land use types in transfer matrixes and the LUCC process has been dominated by these three land use types. Second, the average shortest path values of five transition matrix networks are all less than 1.5, indicating that land use system becomes more active yet less stable but the average shortest path values of these five networks present an increasing trend, indicating a more stable development of land use system. Third, in recent 30 years, natural ecosystem has been gradually replaced by artificial ecosystem, manifesting a reduction of 62.1% in natural grassland areas and a 65.1% reduction in waste land areas.

Key words: land use and land cove, complex network, major land use types, Guanting Reservoir