Analysis of the land use structure change and driving factors in the delta oasis of the Yarkand-Kashghar River over the last 22 years

Land use/Cover Change (LUCC) is one of the hot topics in global change research. In order to understand the rules of LUCC structural change and its attributions in the Yarkant-Kashgar River Delta oasis, this study explored the change process, direction and attribution mechanism of LUCC by methods of change trajectory, dynamic degree and transfer matrix integration of Landsat data, hydrological data, metrological data, and socio-economic data of Yarkant-Kashgar River delta oasis area. The research results showed that: 1) the land cover changed over 22 years of research; evidently, the urban land, vegetation and wetland areas increased about 240.09, 3 908.22, and 539.73 km2, respectively, while water and unused land areas decreased by 464.60 and 4 223.44 km2, respectively. The rate of change in land cover in the latter 10 years was greater than the rate of change in the previous 10 years. 2) The results of change trajectory analysis demonstrated that 66.22% of land use type did not change; the most stable land cover types are layland, followed by vegetation, urban land, water, and wetlands. 3) During the 22 years of research, temperature showed an increasing trend, and reached a significant level; the relative humidity was shown to decrease, and also reached a significant level; precipitation fluctuation was shown to decrease, but did not reach a significant level; population and GDP were shown to increase, but not significantly; the warming and drying of climate, and the rapid growth of population and GDP, to some extent, lead to the increase of urban land and vegetation area and the decrease of water and desert land in the study area.