A very substantial change of the landscapes selleck chemicals llc occurred in the study area, from the 67.1% of the marsh wetland area in 1975 to 73.1% farmland area in 2006. In 1989, the typical marsh wetland loss was 47.4% compared with 1975, and the loss was 89.8% in 2006. The marsh landscape shrank in the HNNR, with a few odd marsh wetlands in the farm areas.In the past 30 years, a large loss of rivers and ponds occurred during the progression of marsh loss. The landscape in blue lost 53%, and the natural forest loss was 58.2% since 1975. During the progression of the basic natural landscape of the marsh wetlands changing into an agricultural landscape, the dry farmland landscape changed to an increasing number of paddy fields. No paddy fields existed in the study area in 1975, but this landscape comprised one-third of the study area in 2006.

A large amount of dry farmland was replaced by paddy fields with the extensive development of agricultural irrigation, which had a very negative impact on the regional marsh wetlands. The few remaining marsh wetlands degraded into meadows because of the loss of healthy habitats attributable to irrigation activity. Therefore, the area of the meadow landscape has seen a nearly 32.3% increase even after most of the original meadows were reclaimed into croplands in the past 30 years.3.2. Progression and Characteristics of Encroachment on Marsh WetlandsTwo matrices of the landscape changes were made for the two periods according to the three landscape maps in 1975, 1989, and 2006 based on interpretations of the satellite images (Table 1, Table 2).

From these, we analyzed how the marsh wetlands shrunk while the farm landscapes increased in the study area.Table 1Transformation matrix of landscape and land use within the study area during the period from 1975 to 1989 (unit: km2).Table 2Transformation matrix of landscape and land use within the study area during the period from 1989 to 2006 (unit: km2).Table 1 shows the apparent loss of marsh wetlands from 1975 to 1989, during which a large amount of marsh wetlands were reclaimed into dry farmland or paddy fields. A 47% loss of the marsh area occurred, Entinostat and the area of dry farmland increased by 380%, a four-fold increase compared with 1975. In 1989 paddy fields comprised 15% of the study area, while in 1975 almost no paddy fields existed. Twenty percent of the forest area was reclaimed into crop land or for other purposes. The originally existing marsh wetlands were the basic landscape in the study area in 1975, and natural marsh, river, and pond landscapes comprised nearly 90% of the area.