Spatial-temporal characteristics of land use change in the northern border transect of Heilongjiang Province, China

Land use change and its driving factors can be assessed to provide some guide for sustainable development in the border region．Land use change and land cover data in 24 selected counties in the northern border transect of Heilongjiang in 1995 and 2015 were subject to spatial analysis, multiple linear regression and geodetector method, to dissect the spatial-temporal characteristics of land use changes．Forest-cultivation land use change and major driving factors are studied．Land use and land cover in the northern border region showed significant changes from 1995 to 2015, with increased cultivated land, decreased forest and unused land, from Daxing’an Mountains to Xiaoxing’an Mountains to Sanjiang Plain．Forest-cultivation land use change was the main type and mainly distributed in Sanjiang Plain and the northern part of Xiaoxing’an Mountains．Forest-cultivation land use change was driven by many factors．In comparison with natural factors, socio-economic factors (urban population, grain yield, chemical fertilizer use and primary industry) were found to be more important．Taken into account of the different driving factors and dynamic mechanism in forest-cultivation land use change, typical counties can be divided into urbanization leading regions affected by urban population, agriculture oriented regions affected by grain yield and fertilizer utilization, industry constrained regions affected by primary industry．