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Map** and evaluation of landscape ecological status using geographic indices extracted from remote sensing imagery of the Pearl River Delta, China, between 1998 and 2008

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Abstract

This paper presents a method of map** and monitoring ecological quality and environmental change using an ecological evaluation model (EEM), which is based on remote sensing data of the Pearl River Delta region in Guangdong, China. Five geographical indices were selected: Impervious Surface, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Land Surface Temperature, and Greenness and Brightness generated from the Tasseled Cap Transformation. These geographical indices are of ecological significance and they were used as variables to build the EEM through factor analysis. In addition, land use maps derived from remote sensing data were overlaid on these five index maps to analyze the effects of land use change on ecological status. Based on the EEM values, five levels of ecological zones were identified using a standard-deviation segmenting method. The results showed that the areas of the first and second levels decreased significantly, those of the third and fourth levels increased, and the area of the fifth level remained unchanged. It was established that the remote sensing method is practical for the analysis of ecological change, thus this work could be considered a case study for other ecological monitoring research.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant No.: 41201432), Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2014A070711020), National Special Program on Basic Works for Science and Technology of China (No. 2013FY110900), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No.: S2013010014097).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, Guangdong, China

    **qu Zhang & Fenglei Fan

  2. State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100101, China

    Yunqiang Zhu

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  1. **qu Zhang
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  2. Yunqiang Zhu
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  3. Fenglei Fan
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Correspondence to Fenglei Fan.

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Zhang, J., Zhu, Y. & Fan, F. Map** and evaluation of landscape ecological status using geographic indices extracted from remote sensing imagery of the Pearl River Delta, China, between 1998 and 2008. Environ Earth Sci 75, 327 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-5158-0

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