Study of the Modern Yellow River Delta Wetland Landscape Fragmentation and its Driving Forces

In this paper, the wetland landscape features of the Modern Yellow River Delta have been interpreted from the remote sensing images of the years of 1976, 1986, 2000 and 2008. Based on the landscape ecological theory, the wetland landscape fragmentation and the driving forces are analyzed. The results show that: in general, the maximum patch area, the mean patch size and the mean proximity index of wetlands are continuously decreased. The index of wetland patch density is increased. These results indicate that the wetland landscape in the Modern Yellow River Delta is keeping fragmentizing during recent 32 years. However, the fragmentation process is very complex and the constructed wetland types and the natural wetland ones in the Modern Yellow River Delta area show different changing trends. In the long run, the natural factors of river runoff and sediment load of the Yellow River are the key factors. While in a short time, anthropogenic factors such as agricultural reclamation, coastal aquiculture and oilfield development are the dominating factors of estuarine wetland landscape fragmentation.