A Study on Land Use and Environment in Tonza City area in Hainan Province, China: Twenty Years of Change
In this background, this study aims to study the dynamics of land use change in the area for the last two decades.
The study area consists of four counties under the administrative jurisdiction of Tonza city, namely, Fan Yang Zheng ( or Banyan), Shui Man Xiang (or Goshizan), Hongshang Xiang and Maoyan Zheng. All these four counties are rural areas inhabited by people of Li ethnic community. The total area is approximately 600 km
2 ranging from 109° 19’ 17”E to 109° 44’ 05”E and 18° 47’ 57”N to 19° 02’ 26”N. Figure 1 illustrates the location of the study area. It is a rugged mountainous area, with elevation ranging from a minimum of 290 m to a maximum of 1860 m above mean sea level.
Fig. 1 Map of Tonza city area in Hainan province of China, showing four counties under study
2. Data and Methods
2.1 Data used
Landsat satellite data from 1980 and 1999 have been used for this study. The data for 1980 is Landsat MSS acquired on January 1980 and that for 1999 is Landsat ETM data acquired on January 1999. Besides, topographic map (scale 1:50,000 and contour interval of 100 m) was also used.
