Analysis of Land Use Change Characteristics and Its Driving Forces in the Loess Plateau: A Case Study in the Yan River Basin

Abstract

Land resources are closely intertwined with human survival, making it crucial to explore the spatiotemporal changes and driving forces of land use. In this study, the Yan River Basin in the Loess Plateau was selected as the study area. The Mann–Kendall trend test, Pettitt’s test, landscape pattern indices, and other methods were employed to explore characteristics and driving factors of land use change from 1990 to 2020. The results indicate that: (1) The areas of forest and impervious showed a significant increasing trend and suddenly changed in 2004. Change-point years for the area of cropland and grassland were 2005 and 1999, respectively. The main transition of land use types was from cropland to grassland and from grassland to forest. (2) Patches showed a trend towards regularization and simplification, indicating the strengthening of human activities’ impact on spatial patterns. (3) Both social and natural factors jointly influenced land use change in the Yan River Basin. The Grain for Green (GfG) project was the main driving factor in accelerating land use transformation. This study aims to provide a basis for the scientific management of land resources and serve as an example for related research on land use change in the Loess Plateau.