Landscape pattern change in the upper valley of Min River

The upper valley of Min River (102°59′–104°14′E, 31°26′–33°16′N), which is consisted of the counties Wenchuan, Maoxian, Lixian, Heishui, and Songpan, refers to the part up to Dujiangyan City, and locates on the transition zone from the Tibetan Plateau to the Sichuan Basin. It is one of the most important forest areas in China, especially in Sichuan Province. Over past two decades, the landscape changed remarkably in the region. The 3S techniques (Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS) and Global Position System (GPS)) were used to classify the images and analyze the landscape change. The remotely sensed data of Landsat TM 1986 and Landsat ETM+2000 were used to analyze the landscape change of the region. The landscape were classified into 10 types of cropland, forest, shrub land, economic forest, grassland, build up land, river, lake, swamp, and unused land. The results showed that: 1) the woodland and grassland were dominating landscape types in the upper valley of Min River, which is more than 91% of the study area; 2) the alteration of the landscape was mainly happened among forest, shrub land, grassland, economic forest, cropland, and build up land, where forest decreased from 51.17% to 47.56%; 3) the landscape fragmentation in the upper valley of Min River was aggravated from 1986 to 2000.