Analyzing historical land use changes using a Historical Land Use Reconstruction Model: a case study in Zhenlai County, northeastern China

Historical land use information is essential to understanding the impact of anthropogenic modification of land use/cover on the temporal dynamics of environmental and ecological issues. However, due to a lack of spatial explicitness, complete thematic details and the conversion types for historical land use changes, the majority of historical land use reconstructions do not sufficiently meet the requirements for an adequate model. Considering these shortcomings, we explored the possibility of constructing a spatially-explicit modeling framework (HLURM: Historical Land Use Reconstruction Model). Then a three-map comparison method was adopted to validate the projected reconstruction map. The reconstruction suggested that the HLURM model performed well in the spatial reconstruction of various land-use categories, and had a higher figure of merit (48.19%) than models used in other case studies. The largest land use/cover type in the study area was determined to be grassland, followed by arable land and wetland. Using the three-map comparison, we noticed that the major discrepancies in land use changes among the three maps were as a result of inconsistencies in the classification of land-use categories during the study period, rather than as a result of the simulation model.