Landscape ecological risk assessment in Yellow River Delta

The landscape ecological risk assessment has been widely used to describe and evaluate the possible effects of natural disasters or human activities on the landscape structure, function and process. Because of the wide spread of the saline-alkali land, the pollution of the oil exploiting and the serious damage of ecosystem, the landscape ecological risk is relatively low in the Yellow River Delta. In order to study the landscape ecological risk there, this paper assessed the landscape ecological risk assessment by building the loss index of ecosystem with the macroscopic landscape ecosystem as the ecological risk acceptor based on the six categories landscape structure data derived from the remote sensing images in 2000 and 2005, as well as the field survey data. The results indicated that the minimum landscape ecological risk appears in the cultivated land and the maximum landscape ecological risk is in the area of forest land, therefore, the control and management of forest land system should be taken advantage. The areas with higher landscape ecological risk accounted for about one third of the total area, and the areas with no landscape ecological risk accounted for about half of the total area in 2000. The landscape ecological risk has magnified conspicuously in 2005, with the degraded landscapes located mainly in the northern and middle part of Yellow River Delta. Despite of uncertainties, the research results can provide scientific reference information for the local landscape protection and have an important significance for the comprehensive control and management of ecological restoration of the local government.