Analyzing the changes of landscape pattern in the coastal zone based on GIS and RS: A case study of Nantong, China

Through the study of dramatic landscape pattern changes in the coastal zone of Nantong, China in 2003, 2005 and 2008, the influence of urbanization on natural landscape were reproduced using ARC/INFO software. Firstly we divided the remote sensing data into six categories, and then calculated varieties of landscape pattern indices according to Fragtats 3.3 software, we also counted spatial landscape pattern character to analyze the coastal zone in Nantong. The results show that Shennon's diversity index keeps growing annually, and Shennon's evenness index increases in the beginning and decreases in the later time from 2003 to 2008, The dominant types of landscape are sea and construction land. In addition, wetland's area becomes larger year by year and its connectivity is excellent. In general, the artificial disturbance affects the landscape pattern in coastal zone of Nantong greatly, which leads to floating changes of inter-annual landscape type and index.