Tempo-spatial change of landscape pattern in semi-arid agro-pastoral transition area in recent 20 years—A case study in Ejin Holo Banner, Inner Mongolia

Tempo-spatial change of land use pattern in sem-i arid agro-pastoral mosaic areas is one of determining factors for land degradation and its productivity,and this change is very significant in recent 20 years since land contract policy has been implemented.This paper,taking Ejin Holo Banner as a case study,aims at the tempo-spatial change of sem-i arid agro-pastoral landscape.The results show that the whole landscape is conversing from simple and man-made to diversified and near-natural landscape,in which change in early period (1977-1987) occurs in hilly-floodplain mosaic area,whereas change in later period (1987-1998) in the whole landscape.Changes of land use structure demonstrate that change of woodland focus on area in early period and on spatial distribution in later period,woodland is not the dominant type for sand control, meanwhile,over-cutting of shrub in early period and the large-scale plantation of shrub in later period give a good explanation of change of the whole landscape,which proves that shrub plantation will be the optimum measure for restoration and reconstruction of damaged sem-i arid landscape.At the same time,the area and spatial distribution of mobile sandland are both decreasing,the convergence of mobile sandland,however,may increase the difficulty of sand control.On the other hand,the intactness of these mobile sandland may be helpful to increase the stability of the whole landscape and to optimize the utility of limited resources in the sem-i arid area.