Dynamics of Saline-alkali Land and Its Ecological Regionalization in Western Songnen Plain, China

As the important reserve land resources for food production, saline-alkali land should play a significant role to ensure the national food security in the context of global food crisis. The western Songnen Plain is one of main distribution regions of saline-alkali land in China, with great potential in agricultural development. In this study, the extent, transformation, spatial distribution and temporal change of saline-alkali land in the western Songnen Plain during 1954-2005 were investigated by using remote sensing and GIS spatial analysis methods. Saline-alkali land change was detected from a temporal series of topographic maps in 1954, satellite images of Landsat MSS in 1976, Landsat TM/ETM in 1988, 2000 and 2005 through artificial visual interpretation. The results indicated a significant expansion in saline-alkali land area and aggravation in salinization. The area of saline-alkali land had increased from 401.48x10(3) ha in 1954 to 1 097.45x10(3) ha in 2005. While the ratio of light, moderate and serious salinized land areas changed from 6.72 : 2.92 : 1.00 to 1.25 : 1.06 : 1.00 in the study period. Grassland, cropland, swampland and water body were the major land use and land cover types from which saline-alkali land transformed. And the secondary salinization occured mainly in Da'an City, Tongyu County, Changling County, Daqing City, Dorbod Mongolian Autonomous County and Zhaoyuan County. Finally, seven large ecoregions and 14 corresponding sub-ecoregions were delineated out based on spatio-temopral dynamic characteristics of saline-alkali land and geo-relational environmental attributes. According to the results, measures of amelioration and ways of development of saline-alkali land in the western Songnen Plain were put forward.