Landscape heterogeneity of mountainous and hilly areas in western Henan province of China

Based on the GIS technology and ERDAS software, the landscape heterogeneity of mountainous and hilly areas in Gongyi city of western Henan province in 2010 was studied by the moving window method. The study results showed that:(1) the main landscape of the study area was dominated by dry land and woodland, the proportion of dry land could get to 36.3% and woodland was 21.2% of the total area; (2) the landscape pattern analysis of Gongyi by the moving window method showed that the study area had four landscape diversity centers, which were urban built-up areas, southeastern hilly region, low mountains in the south region and the northern part of the valley plains agricultural areas; (3) different landscape pattern showed significant spatial heterogeneity along the transects, the window radius of 1000m was proved to best retain the gradient characteristics and explicitly reflect the spatial changes when compared with the other window radius; (4) at the landscape level, the maximum landscape shape index and landscape diversity index were mainly occurred in the range of 4-6km distance from the city center of Gongyi City. The fragmentation degree of the southeastern suburbs was much weaker than the southwestern suburbs in the study area. This was mainly because of less human disturbances in southwestern suburbs of Gongyi City. The study results were supposed to be meaningful and important for the sustainable use of land resources, and also for the landscape planning and management in the study area.