Random and systematic change analysis in land use change at the category level—A case study on Mu Us area of China

Highlights: • Detected and analyzed the random and systematic change characteristics of land use change at the category level. • Proposed a method to set threshold for clearly distinguish random and systematic changes. • Clarified the mathematical meanings and indicative significances of random and systematic changes in land use change • Took the land use change in Mu Us area as a case study to verify the effectiveness of the method Random and systematic change analysis is gradually becoming a common method for effectively detecting land use change signals from land transition matrix, but most researches focus only on the change characteristics at the transition level. This paper attempted to distinguish random and systematic changes at the category level, and to clarify the meanings of these two types of changes, as well as their indicative significances of change causes. This paper first calculated the random expected value of change area at the category level, and the deviation of the actual change area from the expected value. Then we proposed a method for setting a threshold of the deviation to clearly distinguish random and systematic changes. This method could eliminate the influence of land use classification errors on the distinction. Through analyzing the mathematical formulas of random expected area, this paper further clarified the meanings of random and systematic changes as well as their indicative significances to change causes. Land use change in Mu Us area of China was used as a case study. Practice showed that detecting and analyzing the random and systematic signals at the category level could accurately determine the change trend of land use, which could help to explore the relationship between land use change and external influences, especially human activities.