Abstract: The juncture of Shaanxi,Shanxi and Inner Mongolia is a typical ecotone which has always been the hot area of desertification research.We classified the landscape into 9 types,including farmland,grassland,forestland,sandy land,saline alkali land,rock,city and town,water,and flood land.Applying the spatial pattern analysis software FRAGSTATS of the vector version,we calculated a set of landscape indices,corresponding to the three scale levels of patch,class and landscape.At patch level,the forestland(patch id 320) showed the smallest shape index (1.05) indicating a simple shape in this case,whereas the grassland (patch id 14) had the largest shape index(35.62) showing the most noncircular( i.e.,most complex) shape.The fractal dimension (FD=1.21) also revealed the simple shape of the former patch type.At class level,we found that the LPI,AWMPFD,PSSD,ED,TE-WGT,CEWD,TE,MPS,and AWMSI of the grassland,which make up 73.796% of the total area,were larger than those of other landscape types,indicating that this landscape type dominated the total landscape,with the complex shape indicating strongly interrupted.The number of farmlan[JP2]d was the largest,with the second area,the largest PD and LSI,and larger PSCV, showing that the farmland had a gathering characteristic of large patch,with complex shape indicating influenced strongly by human.In could be concluded that landscape pattern indices could be used in characterizing the spatial pattern of the studied area.

Key words: Dinghushan, Succession community, Litter, Water characteristics