Land cover dynamics of different topographic conditions in Beijing, China

Topographic conditions play an important role in controlling land cover dynamic processes. In this study, remotely sensed data and the geographic information system were applied to analyze the changes in land cover along topographic gradients from 1978 to 2001 in Beijing, a rapidly urbanized mega city in China. The study was based on five periods of land cover maps derived from remotely sensed data: Landsat MSS for 1978, Landsat TM for 1984, 1992, 1996 and 2001, and the digital elevation model (DEM) derived from 1:250,000 topographic map. The whole area was divided into ten land cover types: conifer forest, broadleaf forest, mixed forest, shrub, brushwood, meadow, farmland, built-up, water body and bare land. The results are summarized as follows. (1) Shrub, forest, farmland and builtup consist of the main land cover types of the Beijing area. The most significant land cover change from 1978 to 2001 was the decrease of the farmland and expansion of the builtup area. Farmland decreased from 6354 to 3813 km2 in the 23 years, while the built-up area increased from 421 to 2642 km2. Meanwhile, the coverage of forest increased from 17.2% to 24.7% of the total area. The conversion matrix analysis indicated that the transformation of farmland to the built-up area was the most significant process and afforestation was the primary cause of the replacement of shrub to forest. (2) Topographic conditions are of great importance to the distribution of land cover types and the process of land cover changes. Elevation has an intensive impact on the distribution of land cover types. The area below 100 m mostly consists of farmland and built-up areas, while the area above 100 m is mainly covered by shrub and forest. Shrub has the maximum frequency in areas between 100 and 1000 m, while forest has dominance in areas above 800 m. According to the analysis of land cover changes in different ranges of elevation, the greatest change below 100 m was the process of urbanization. The process of the main land cover change occurred above 100 m was the transformation from shrub to forest. This result was consistent with the vertical change of natural vegetation distribution in Beijing. (3) Slope has a great influence on the distribution of land cover. Farmland and built-up areas are mostly distributed in flat areas, while shrub and forest occupy steeper areas compared with other land cover types. Forest frequency increased with the increasing slope. Land cover changes differed from the slope gradients. In the plain area, the land cover change occurred as the result of urbanization. With the increasing of the slope gradient, afforestation, which converts shrub to forest, was the process of the primary land cover change.