Resources Science ›› 2019, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (5): 1002-1012.doi: 10.18402/resci.2019.05.16

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Change of remote sensing ecological index of an oasis city in the arid area

Xuande ZHOU1(), Huadong GUO2, ·Simayi Zibibula3(), Zutao DENG1, Bin LIANG1   

  1. 1. School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Hubei University of Economics, Wuhan 430205, China
    2. Key Laboratory of Digital Earth, Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, CAS, Beijing 100094, China
    3. College of Resource and Environmental Science of Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
  • Received:2018-07-19 Revised:2019-04-12 Online:2019-05-25 Published:2019-05-25

Abstract:

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a typical arid area, and its ecological environment is extremely fragile. It is of great significance to understand its ecological environment changes in a timely and accurate manner.This study chose the oasis city Urumqi in Xinjiang as the research area and used the remote sensing images from the same month of 2004 and 2016 to calculate the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI), and analyze the present situation, spatial distribution, center of gravity, landscape features, and driving factors of change of RSEI. The results show that: (1) In 2004—2016, the average remote sensing ecological index value increased from 0.341 to 0.400, an increase of 17.24%. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Wetness (WET), and Land Surface Temperature (LST) showed a certain degree of increase, and Normalized Difference Build-up Soil Index (NDBSI) showed a downward trend; (2) With the classification of ecological index values, the main part of the study area fell within poor and medium ecological index classes. The total area of these classes is obviously growing.The classes mainly remained unchanged or improved, and the areas with improvements of ecological index mainly moved up for one class; (3) The center of gravity of all types of ecological index classes shifted, and the distance of gravity center shift of the poor ecological index class was the longest, reaching 2.82 km. The distance of shift was relatively small for other classes; (4) Landscape pattern of different types of remote sensing ecological indices changed, complexity of shape of patches increased, the spatial connectivity and agglomeration were significant.This study analyzed the spatial characteristics and changes of the ecological index and found that the process of gradual change of the ecosystem under the premise of maintaining stability with human activities is closely related to urban expansion.

Key words: urban ecology, remote sensing, ecological index, landscape, oasis in arid area, Urumqi City