Response of land system to spatiotemporal heterogeneity of human-land interaction in mountainous areas: a case study of a typical watershed in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China
摘要
Exploring the land system response to human-land interaction in mountainous areas can help to scientifically understand the human-land relationship in mountainous areas and guide the optimal regulation of land use in mountainous areas. However, there is a dearth of research on interpreting human-land interaction in mountain areas in relation to land system. This paper employed the coupling coordination degree model, land use transfer matrix, and other research methods to explore the human-land interaction process and its land system evolution characteristics in mountainous areas on a long series of time scales from the grid scale and reveal its driving mechanism, taking the typical watershed of Caotangxi in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) as an example. The results show that: (1) The human-land interaction relationship in the Caotangxi watershed tended to be coordinated during the study period and presented a more coordinated spatial differentiation in the central low-elevation area compared with the surrounding high-elevation area. (2) Significant changes in the dynamics, structure, and function of the land system, with the amount of sloping farmland shrinking markedly and shifting mainly to economic fruit forests and forest land, resulting in a significant increase in the area of forest land and economic fruit forests; a gradual shift in the structure and function of the land system from production and ecological functions dominated by sloping farmland and forest land to eco-economic functions and ecological functions dominated by economic fruit forests and forest land; (3) Under the combined effects of natural, socio-economic, and policy factors, the evolution of human-land interaction in mountainous areas and the response of the land system showed obvious temporal phases and spatial heterogeneity, demonstrating the uniqueness of the transformation of human-land interaction in mountainous areas and the evolution of the land system. The research framework and findings of the paper can provide a reference value for the optimal use of land resources and improvement of human-land relations in similar mountainous areas.