Landscape character assessment of water-land ecotone in an island area for landscape environment promotion

The development of island landscape space is restricted by its eco-environmental vulnerability and ecosystem complexity. Focusing on the water-land ecotone in the southern part of Chongming Island, this study explored a multidimensional holistic assessment method of island landscape by referring to methods of Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), assisting decision-making in island land use management. This study established a system comprising 12 factors of island landscape characteristics from 3 dimensions: nature, humanity, and coastal pressure. Both qualitative and quantitative methods of fishnet network, spatial overlay, and artificial boundary recognition were used to identify island landscape character types. The results show that there are 6 landscape zones at the local scale, 18 landscape character subtypes, and 87 landscape character partitions at the site scale. Finally, suggestions for improvement of each landscape character zone were made in terms of landscape improvement, island ecological security and, especially, landscape environmental governance, to provide direction for the sustainable development and utilisation of island landscape resources.