Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• ZHENG, D
• WALLIN, D. O
• HAO, Z

Titel

Rates and patterns of landscape change between 1972 and 1988 in the Changbai Mountain area of China and North Korea

Ist Teil von

• Landscape ecology, 1997-08, Vol.12 (4), p.241-254

Ort / Verlag

Dordrecht: Springer

Erscheinungsjahr

1997

Quelle

SpringerLINK Contemporary (Konsortium Baden-Württemberg)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Satellite imagery was used to quantify rates and patterns oflandscape change between 1972 and 1988 in the Changbai MountainReserve and its adjacent areas in the People's Republic of Chinaand North Korea. The 190,000 ha Reserve was established as anInternational Biosphere Reserve by The United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1979. It is themost important natural landscape remaining in China'stemperate/boreal climate. The images used in this research cover atotal area of 967,847 ha, about three-fourths of which is in China.Imagery from 1972 and 1988 was classified into 2 broad cover types(forest and non-forest). Overall, forests covered 84.4% of thestudy area in 1972 and 74.5% in 1988. Changes in forest coverwithin the Reserve were minimal. The loss of forest cover outsidethe Reserve appears to be strongly associated with timberharvesting at lower elevations. Landscape patterns in 1988 weremore complex, more irregular, and more fragmented than in 1972.This is one of the few studies to assess landscape changes acrosstwo countries. The rates and patterns of forest-cover loss weredifferent in China and North Korea. In North Korea, extensivecutting appears to have occurred prior to 1972 and this hascontinued through 1988 while in China, most cutting appears to haveoccurred since 1972.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]