Spatio-temporal characteristics and driving forces of landscape structure changes in the middle reach of the Heihe River Basin from 1990 to 2015

Context The oasis, desert–oasis ecotone (DOE) and desert compose the typical landscape structures in arid regions. The detection of landscape structure changes and quantification of the driving forces are vital to sustainable ecosystem management. Previous studies did not integrate the three landscape types, especially considering the role of the DOE, to detect landscape changes.