Geostatistics analysis of landscape ecological integrity in Yulin, China

Landscape ecological integrity is a regionalized variability and has heterogeneity. Its heterogeneity varies over time and is driven by different factors in various years. In this paper, Geostatistical methods were used for isotropic variation and anisotropic variation of landscape ecological integrity (LEI) in Yulin using GS +9.0 software. Under isotropic conditions, the spatial heterogeneity caused by random factors accounted for 7.30%, 45%, 43.5% and 30.7% of the total in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 respectively, mainly within the range of 10km. In these four years, the spatial heterogeneity caused by spatial autocorrelation factors accounted for 92.7%, 55%, 56.5% and 69.3% respectively, mainly between 10 km and 54.6 km, 153.6 km, 181.8 km and 119.4 km. Spatial heterogeneity was generated by spatial autocorrelation factors principally in recent years in Yulin. The ratio of nugget value to base value of LEI varied from 0.073 to 0.45, reflecting a moderate to strong spatial correlation of LEI. The simpler the spatial pattern of landscape ecological integrity, the stronger the spatial dependence. In anisotropic situations, the spatially structured variance dominated in ratio of 71.84%, 70.00%, 71.85% and 85.80% of the total independently in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015. The spatial pattern of Landscape ecological integrity is a synthetic expression of landscape characteristics influenced by random factors and structural factors. Geostatistics can be well used to express the spatial heterogeneity of landscape ecological integrity.