Mapping Land Use/Cover Dynamics of the Yellow River Basin from 1986 to 2018 Supported by Google Earth Engine

Abstract

Changes in the land use/cover alter the Earth system processes and affect the provision of ecosystem services, posing a challenge to achieve sustainable development. In the past few decades, the Yellow River (YR) basin faced enormous social and environmental sustainability challenges associated with environmental degradation, soil erosion, vegetation restoration, and economic development, which makes it important to understand the long-term land use/cover dynamics of this region. Here, using three decades of Landsat imagery (17,080 images) and incorporating physiography data, we developed an effective annual land use/cover mapping framework and provided a set of 90 m resolution continuous annual land use/cover maps of the YR basin from 1986 to 2018 based on the Google Earth Engine and the Classification and Regression Trees algorithm. The independent random sampling validations based on the field surveys (640 points) and Google Earth (3456 points) indicated that the overall accuracy of these maps is 78.3% and 80.0%, respectively. The analysis of the land system of the YR basin showed that this region presents complex temporal and spatial changes, and the main change patterns include no change or little change, cropland loss and urban expansion, grassland restoration, increase in orchard and terrace, and increase in forest during the entire study period. The major land use/cover change has occurred in the transitions from forests, grasslands, and croplands to the class of orchard and terrace (19.8% of all change area), which not only increase the greenness but also raised the income, suggesting that YR progress towards sustainable development goals for livelihood security, economic growth, and ecological protection. Based on these data and analysis, we can further understand the role of the land system in the mutual feedback between society and the environment, and provide support for ecological conservation, high-quality development, and the formulation of sustainable management policies in this basin, highlighting the importance of continuous land use/cover information for understanding the interactions between the human and natural systems.