Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5112793 | Journal of Cultural Heritage | 2017 | 10 Pages |
Abstract
The tuntian system was a state-promoted system of military-agriculture, which originated in the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-9 AD). All the imperial dynasties in Chinese history adopted the practice of tuntian to cultivate and guard frontier areas as an important state policy for developing border areas and consolidating frontier defense. This paper describes the use of satellite remote sensing data to uncover an ancient canal-based tuntian system located in an oasis agricultural landscape adjacent to the ancient Kingdom of Loulan at the southern margin of the Tarim Basin. The remote sensing data examined include Chinese Gaofen-1 (GF-1) VHR imagery, Landsat-8 (LS-8) OLI data and ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model Version 2 (ASTER GDEMV2) products. The effective irrigated tuntian area was estimated to be 2800Â ha and the maximum irrigated tuntian area was found to be more than 8000Â ha during the area's most prosperous period. The overall spatial structure of Milan's tuntian agricultural landscape was explored using the patch-corridor-matrix model. By detailed analysis of satellite remote sensing data, this study reconstructed a 3D view of Milan's tuntian agricultural landscape in a GIS.
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Authors
Lei Luo, Xinyuan Wang, Jie Liu, Huadong Guo, Rosa Lasaponara, Wei Ji, Chuansheng Liu,