ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Land Use Dynamics
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1590880
This article is part of the Research TopicMonitoring and Modeling of Runoff and Soil Processes in River BasinsView all 5 articles
Analysis of characteristics of land use change and its ecological effects in the Datong River Basin
Provisionally accepted
- 1Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
- 2Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China
- 3Xinzhou Normal University, Xinzhou, Shanxi Province, China
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Based on the lack of understanding of the attribution of land use change and the resulting ecological effects in the Datong River Basin (DTRB), we analyzed the spatial-temporal characteristics of the land use change and explored the drivers of the changes, and calculated the effect of the land use change on the net primary productivity (NPP) from 1990 to 2020. The main conclusions are as follows: The predominant land use types comprised grassland, forest, cropland, bare land, ice/snow and other categories. The cropland, grassland and shrubs showed a decreased trend. However, forest, bare land and impervious surface were increased. The comprehensive index of the land use degree showed a significant downward trend, indicating that land use intensity will likely remain at a low level. Additionally, these conversions occurred among different land use types. Cropland and Grassland were dominated by transfer-out; Forest, bare land and impervious surface were dominated by transfer-in. Regarding the analysis of the driving factors of land use changes. The low elevation area was affected by human activities, and under the impact of “green gain” protection policy, the area of grassland increased; coupled with the impact of “returning farmland to forests”, the area of cropland decreased. Bare land was significantly and negatively correlated with GDP and population, while impervious surface was positively correlated. However, high-altitude areas were affected by natural factors, with grassland partial negatively correlated with precipitation. For bare land, it partial positively correlated with temperature. Snow/ice partial positively correlated with precipitation. Regarding the ecological effect of land use change, the multi-year average NPP was about 167.0 gC·m-2·a-1 and showed a decreased trend during the period of 1990-2020, and the NPP decreased in the northwest and increased in the southeast. This study provides scientific suggestions for the management of land resources and ecological environmental protection.
Keywords: Datong River basin, Climate Change, Human activity, land use change, Net primary productivity of vegetation
Received: 10 Mar 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Qin, Liu and Jin. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Zizhen Jin, Xinzhou Normal University, Xinzhou, 034000, Shanxi Province, China
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