Research On The Landscape Pattern And Development Of Counties In The Northwest Area Of Guangdong

The ecosystem service function which based on the landscape patterns is an important foundation for the human beings’ survival and development.Human activities for development impacted on the landscape patterns increasingly serious.The report of the 19 th CPC National Congress pointed out that the main contradiction in China is the unbalance in development,and there is a strong demand for "lucid waters and lush mountains".In this context,relatively poor and backward counties are the areas where these problems are concentrated.The study objects are the counties in the northwestern Guangdong.The main purpose of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between landscape patterns and development in the counties.In this study,landscape patterns and the development are regarded as two subsystems in one system.Quantitative research methods are used for the subsystems respectively.Then the subsystems will be connected by qualitative methods to uncover the relationship between the landscape patterns and development.The research mainly includes the research on the changes of counties’ landscape patterns,the influence of counties’ development on landscape patterns changes,and the research on the driving forces of landscape patterns changes.The main research contents,methods and conclusions of each chapter are as follows:The first chapter reviews the literature of landscape patterns and its driving forces,the tools of sustainable development assessment.The review shows that 1)there are few researches on the landscape patterns and its driving forces for the relatively poor and backward counties,2)there is a lack of in-depth researches on the relationship between the landscape patterns change and development,3)because Sustainable Livelihood Approach(SLA)fit for this study’s object and is suitable for being the framework of driving force analysis,this dissertation takes SLA as the theoretical framework.The second chapter studies the linkages between the landscape patterns and development under the SLA theoretical framework.The study of the framework shows that the counties’ landscape patterns are the results of development at certain times.On the other hand,the landscape elements in the landscape patterns are the capitals which the counties used for development.In addition,the comprehensiveness of SLA framework is also discussed,as well as the different purposes in changing landscape for different actors.The third chapter uses RS,GIS,FRAGSTATS and other tools,through the landscape patterns metrics and the methods from LUCC,the process and results of the landscape patterns change in the northwestern Guangdong are studied.The research on the process of counties landscape patterns change includes landscape composition and the spatial mode,and it shows that the compositions in counties’ patterns are in the trend of increasingly artificial and lacking of planning.The patterns changes’ results illustrate that though the landscape patterns still have strong ecological resilience and a certain potential for land use,the landscape patterns are overall fragmented and the diversified.These trends aggravate the ecological risks in the counties.In the fourth chapter,firstly based on SLA,uses the statistical data,policies and legal documents to assess and describe the different parts of counties’ development in the research area.Secondly,this chapter discussed the impact of counties development on landscape patterns changes.It shown that changes in county landscape patterns sustain the counties fluctuated mitigate the unbalance in the development.Changes in the landscape patterns and their elements are reflected in the characteristics of different stages of development.The main reason for the counties’ landscape patterns changes can be attributed to: the strategy that promotes industrialization based on the maintenance of the primary industry.The fifth chapter takes the governments and peasants as the main actors of development and landscape change,through statistical data analysis,field research,interviews and other research methods,studies the driving force and indicators of landscape patterns change by SLA framework.For the governments,there are huge differences in the driving forces from different levels of governments.For the peasants,the fundamental driving force for farmers to change landscape is the feedback from livelihood outcome under the SLA framework.There are opportunity costs in this feedback.Through the specialized research on fruit trees landscape,crops landscape and house landscape,it is found that there are many indicators impact on the landscape change made by peasants.The sixth chapter discusses the maintenance of the landscape patterns in the process of mitigating the unbalance in the counties’ development.For the governments,the management of the counties’ space needs to transfer from managing results to managing process.Then this chapter discusses some controlling indicators of the process management.For the peasants,on the one hand,the governments and the enterprises jointly provide social capital in the primary industry,and the planning system provides a space-guided approach,which is guiding the peasants to change landscape changes in a way of less effect on the landscape patterns.On the other hand,during the government increasing investment for the rural,the policies should increase the common interests of the peasants,which is guiding the peasants to stop changing the landscape which would be conducive to the counties’ landscape patterns.This dissertation takes the counties in the northwestern Guangdong province as examples to study the relationship between the development and landscape patterns in the unbalance areas.The research methods of landscape patterns change driving force,relative poverty and backward landscape patterns research content,understanding of the purpose and ways of peasants to change landscape,and so on have achieved some innovative research results.It is valuable in academics and applications.The research results of this paper provide theoretical support for enhancing the sustainability of different levels of development,providing decision makers with reasonable and effective policy-making basis.