Mountain landscape health diagnosis and pattern evolution based on remote sensing: Case study in Xinjiang Tianshan Karajun-Kurdening

Over the past four decades, Xinjiang Tianshan's Karajun-Kurdening region has experienced significant landscape degradation, with severe shrinkage of ice-snow and water body landscapes, alongside a dramatic 62.54% annual expansion in bare land. Despite this, the overall landscape health has remained average since 1997, with northern areas showing better health than southern ones. The study introduces a novel remote sensing-based landscape health diagnosis system that integrates supervised classification, landscape pattern indices, and spatial interpolation techniques to assess ecological conditions in arid mountain regions. Validated using high-resolution UAV orthophoto images, this approach offers a robust method for monitoring and managing natural heritage sites, highlighting the need to prioritize protection efforts in scattered areas with poor or extremely poor health status.

HAN Xin, 韩鑫，胡江玲，刘传胜，王心源. (2021). Mountain landscape health diagnosis and pattern evolution based on remote sensing: Case study in Xinjiang Tianshan Karajun-Kurdening. Acta Ecologica Sinica, 41(16). https://doi.org/10.5846/stxb202006011415