Landscape pattern changes at a county scale: A case study in Fengqiu, Henan Province, China from 1990 to 2013

•Firstly introduce “Entropy model” to analyze the whole land use change in different study periods•The first paper research landscape pattern change in county scale•Not only the LUCC was quantified, but also driving factors of LUCC were investigated; analysis combined natural driving forces and cultural driving forces.•The impact of landscape change to human environment is a cutting-edge topic.

Human activities and natural factors drive landscape pattern changes and limit provision of ecosystem services (ES) for human well-being. The analysis of landscape pattern change is one of the most important methods to understand and quantify land use and land cover change (LUCC). In this study, a series of satellite images (1990, 2002, 2009, 2013) of Fengqiu County of Henan province in China and some social data were used for analyzing landscape pattern changes and driving forces. Our results showed that landscape pattern and indices of Fengqiu County have serial changes during 1990-2013. From 1990 to 2013, the unused land (UL) nearly disappeared (the area of UL changed from 19.1 to 1.06 km2) and the area of water area (WA) dramatically decreased (from 71.41 to 11.4 km2). The mutual transformations among cultivated land (CL), forest land (FL) and settlements and mining sites (SMS) were relatively frequent. By further analysis of the number of patches (NP), largest patch index (LPI), perimeter-area fractal dimension (PAFRAC) and Shannon's evenness index (SHEI) both at class and landscape scale, we found that anthropogenic influence increased gradually, intensity of land use is strengthened, and landscape heterogeneity reduced. Human activity, especially population growth was the main driving force which impacted the landscape changes in studied area. The natural factors (temperature and precipitation) make a large impact on WA area. At last, we firstly introduce “Entropy model” to analyze the whole land use change. All the quantifications of LUCC and driving forces can reasonably provide basic information for government to guide the land use and ecological protection.