Abstract:

As the impacts of human activities on environment and nature through disturbance of the global surface have been getting more and more intensive each passing day, it is of great significance to evaluate accurately extent of the human impacts on the present and future environmental changes and superposed influences on variability of the nature. Based on the 2005 and 2013 SPOT 5 remote sensing images of the upper streams of the Miyun Reservoir Watershed, prominent in ecosystem services and fierce in man-vs-land contradictory, with the aid of hemeroby index (human disturbance index) and GIS spatial analysis method, differentiation and characteristics of the spatio-temporal variation of human disturbance in the region were explored from the perspectives of structure, landscape type, spatial distribution and human disturbance. Results show that:(1) During the period of 2005-2013, the landscape in the upper streams of the Miyun Reservoir Watershed was dominated with forest-farm-orchard, which changed rapidly, showing that human activities in intensive utilization of land resources were enhanced; (2) Agricultural structural readjustment, land development and management, economic development, construction and implementation of ecological rehabilitation projects were the main factors driving changes in land use/cover, which were demonstrated in steady reduction of upland, orchard, woods and shrubbery in area, steady expansion of vegetable land, grassland, sparse woodlands, construction land and bottom land in area, that leading to the degradation of forest ecosystems, and on the other hand conversion of industrial and mining lands and wastelands into orchards, forestlands and grasslands as achievements of the implementation of some ecological rehabilitation projects; (3) Partially disturbed landscapes were the dominant type in the region, displaying an increasing tendency from mountain area to hill area in disturbance intensity, especially along the traffic roads and around human activity centers.

Key words: human disturbance, land use and land cover change, spatial-temporal pattern, upper streams of the Miyun Reservoir Watershed