Changes of Land Use and Waterfowl Habitats in Western Dongting Lake from 1989 to 2013

In order to explore the transfer pattern of land use type and remote sensing interpretation and changes of waterfowl habitat in western Dongting lake, remote sensing images of winter in 1989, 2000 and 2013 were chosen and interpreted respectively in the study. The study showed that retention proportion of water and mudflats land was higher than other land use during 1989 to 2013. 8734% of water and 5961% of mudflats land were kept during the period. Only 3054% of marsh land was keep during the above period. The total transformation proportion of marsh land to reed land, dry land and forest was 2026%, 2091% and 1893% respectively and was higher than the transformation proportion of marsh land to water and mudflat land. In the meanwhile, 3477% of forest transformed to mudflat, while reed land, dry land and forest transformed each other during the period. Both of fragmentation index and evenness index of land use increased during the period. Changes of waterfowl habitat could be divided into two phase for the period. The water proportion increased 14% and wetland increased from 1989 to 2002, while water proportion decreased 11% and forest proportion increased 4% from 2002 to 2013. Human activities, such as returning farmland to lake, piscining in lake, the three gorges project, reed planting and poplar cultivation, are an important driving factor to the change of waterfowl habitat. Inappropriate human disturbance can be always leading to degeneration of waterfowl habitat.