PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2017, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (9): 1167-1175.doi: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2017.09.013

• Review • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Characteristics of landscape system in the context of global change

Hsiaofei CHANG1,2(), Jian PENG2, Yanglin WANG2,*, Wenbin WU3, Peng YANG3, Yanxu LIU2, Zhiqing SONG2, Ichen HSUEH4   

  • Online:2017-09-27 Published:2017-09-27
  • Contact: Yanglin WANG E-mail:lzg.123@263.net;ylwang@urban.pku.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 41330747;National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 41671180

Abstract:

Global change is an integral phenomenon including the impact of climate change, social development, land-use change, as well as other natural and anthropogenic effects and their interactions, which has become the most important driving forces of change in landscape systems. The adaptation of landscape system mainly involves absorbing the consequences of global change and maintaining the principal functions of landscape. This adaptive capacity encompasses different landscape types and components of the system and varying degrees of change in different temporal and spatial scales. From the perspective of landscape ecology, this study takes landscape systems as the main objects for alleviating and adapting to the risks and transformations of global change. We summarize the current adaptive characteristics of the landscape system by integrating relevant landscape research such as agriculture landscape and urban landscape. In the process of adaptation, landscape system shows the following characteristics: (1) The interactions and joint impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors are pronounced (2) The internal geographic characteristics of landscape types are assimilated, and diversity and uniqueness of landscape systems are decreasing (3) Landscapes functions are much more hierarchical, demonstrating clear division of responsibilities and more strength of cross-regional linkages in different spatial-temporal scales (4) A clear spatial boundary exists between different functional landscape types, and the functional degradation of transitional or buffer zones has become more serious. Based on these characteristics, future work should focus on improving the following aspects to relieve the impacts of global change: (1) Adaptability and uncertainty analysis of different landscape types or units (2) Cross scale adaptation approach analysis based on holistic improvement of system health (3) Integration of multidisciplinary and multisector studies under the background of global change (4) Promotion of quantitative analysis method of adaptability of landscape system.

Key words: ecological adaptation, landscape system, global change, agricultural landscape, urban landscape