Vegetation dynamics, and land use/land cover change in Chongming Island of Shanghai, China

Vegetation and land use/land cover change are occurring at rapid rates as human activities induced global climate change increases. Analyzing detailed transition process among various land use/land cover types of Chongming Island of Shanghai, China is important to develop strategies for sustainable development and protection of its ecological settings. Accurate land use/land cover information over the past 30 years (1979-2009) was firstly extracted based on Landsat MSS, TM, ETM and ALOS and object-oriented classification. Vegetation, land use/land cover dynamics and the mutual conversions among different land use/ land cover classes were analyzed through the calculation of change matrix derived from classified images and application of land use/ land cover transfer model. The results showed that the absolute quantity of vegetation change and associated dynamicity were great in terms of the internal conversion among these main land use classes during the different time interval. The decrease of vegetation coverage was significant and the ratio of vegetation cover area to the total area of the island had decreased from 71% (1979) to 52% (2009) with the expansion of Chongming Island by 358km2 from 1979 to 2009. The decennial dynamicity during the past 30 years was stable increasing for water body, build-up area and road. The change trend of land use/land cover closely related with requirement of social and economic development in given time besides natural evolution factor. The results suggest that change trajectory of land use/land cover can provide a good quantitative measurement for better understanding of the spatio-temporal pattern of land cover change and provide much information for decision-making.