地理学报

Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2017, Vol. 72 ›› Issue (3): 407-419.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201703004

• Climate Change and Surface Processes • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Quantitative methods for detecting the impacts of climate change on the fluctuation of farming-pastoral ecotone boundaries in northern China

Wenjiao SHI1,2,3,4(), Yiting LIU2,3, Xiaoli SHI5   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory of Land Use, Ministry of Land and Resources, China Land Surveying and Planning Institute, Beijing 100035, China
    2. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
    3. College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
    4. State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
    5. Key Laboratory of Environmental Evolvement and Ecological Construction of Hebei Province, College of Resources and Environment Sciences, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
  • Received:2016-09-26 Revised:2016-11-20 Online:2017-03-15 Published:2017-03-15
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41371002, No.41401113;Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Land Use, Ministry of Land and Resources, No.KLLU201603;Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, No.OFSLRSS201622;Fund for Excellent Young Talents in Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, No.2106RC201

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Abstract:

The quantitative analysis of the effect of climate change on the fluctuation of farming-pastoral ecotone (FPE) boundary in northern China is a current focus in the field of response to climate change in ecological vulnerable regions. Previous studies have given profound descriptions about the effects of climate change on the boundary shifts of the ecotones qualitatively, but lacked quantitative analysis of the contribution of climate change on both spatial and temporal scales. Here, climate data from national meteorological stations and land use data interpreted from remote sensing images of the farming-pastoral ecotone (FPE) in northern China since 1970 were used to describe boundaries of the FPE based on both climate and land use in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Detection in horizontal and vertical directions method (FishNet) and Digital Shoreline Analysis System method (DSAS) were applied to detect the spatial pattern of the FPE boundaries and to examine how much of the boundaries shifts can be explained by climate change in different periods. The results showed that the spatial pattern of the FPE boundaries and contributions of climate varied in different regions and periods. The FPE boundaries moved slightly in the northwest part of the FPE and violently in the northeast part. The shift of climate and land use boundaries in northwest segment of the Greater Hinggan Mountains showed the most highly coupling relationship and the contribution rate of climate change reached 10.7%-44.4% in east-west direction and 4.7%-55.9% in north-south direction based on FishNet method and 1.1%-16.8% based on DSAS method from the 1970s to the 2000s. Most of the detections based on the two methods had consistent results. Moreover, DSAS method was better than FishNet method in overall accuracy and suitable for the precise detection in small range, while FishNet method was more appropriate for intuitive, rapid and low-precision analysis. Our findings highlight the importance of different adaption measures to climate change in the FPE of northern China in different regions and periods.

Key words: farming-pastoral ecotone (FPE) in northern China, climate change, land use, detection in horizontal and vertical directions method (FishNet), digital shoreline analysis system method (DSAS), quantitative detection