Sustainability, Vol. 10, Pages 4730: Spatiotemporal Variations of Land Use/Cover Changes in Inner Mongolia (China) during 1980-2015 (Sustainability)

Land use/cover change (LUCC) is one of the major environmental changes and has become a hot topic in the study of global change. Based on four land use classification maps, this study used the intensity analysis method to quantitatively monitor the land use changes which occurred in Inner Mongolia during 1980–2015. The results showed that changes occurred although the trends of corresponding land use types were different (increase or decrease), and the land use changes had an obvious increasing or decreasing trend before and after 2000, respectively. Generally, woodland, high-coverage grassland, and moderate-coverage grassland decreased and the other land use types increased during 1980–2015. In addition, the changes had great differences in spatial distribution. The area of grassland had the largest decrease, indicating that the quality of grassland has declined in Inner Mongolia. The variation rate of land use in 1980–1990 was faster than the rates in 1990–2000 and 2000–2015.