PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2010, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (3): 259-265.doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2010.03.001

• Original Articles •     Next Articles

Programming on Calculating Fractal Dimension of Land Use Types for 2D Vector Data

WANG Quanfang1, WANG Qian1, ZHANG Qipeng2, MEI Xin1   

  1. 1. Faculty of Resources and Environmental Science Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China|
    2. College of Geography and Environment Science, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China
  • Online:2010-03-25 Published:2010-03-25

Abstract:

Nowadays the fractal dimension is often calculated on raster data, but most of existing land-use data is stored as vector data in fact. If these vector data are converted to images to calculate fractal dimension, perhaps some pixels with inaccurate grey values will be resulted from the “GRID” structure of raster data. The precision calculated on raster data is closely related to the size of pixel and grid image. In this paper, a computation program for the fractal dimension of 2D vector data based on Windows platform has been designed by using Visual C sharp. Now the program has been successfully applied to land-use data of the middle Qinling Mountains and the southeast of Hubei Province in China. The results show that the program is a convenient, reliable and precise method for the fractal dimension of 2D vector data. The land use and land cover types arranged in the descending order of their average stability indices are as follows. 1) The fractal dimensions of the middle Qinling Mountains are in the order of construction land > unutilized land> paddy field > dry upland > grassland > forestland > water area in 1990, 1995 and 2000. 2) The fractal dimensions of the southeast of Hubei Province in China are in the order of paddy field > unutilized land > construction land > dry upland > forestland > grassland > water area in 1990, 1995 and 2000. In a word, forestland, water area and grassland have poorer stability and higher possibility of changes in the two study areas.

Key words: fractal dimension, land use types, Qinling, vector data