Abstract: In this paper,the land use/cover change in the Manas River Basin in recent 57 years was studied by using the extract vectorized data based on the aerial images in 1958 and the interpretation data of remote sensing images in 1976,1987,1998,2006 and 2015.The results showed that:① The land use/cover change in the Manas River Basin was general from 1958 to 2015,the areas of cultivated land,unused land and construction land were enlarged by 5 116.72 km²,1 543.32 km² and 513.83 km²,and the proportions of their total areas were increased by 15.27%,4.6% and 1.53%,respectively;while the proportions of grasslands,woodlands and waters were decreased by 13.5%,5.3% and 2.55% respectively;② According to the analyzed results of dynamic land use change,the change of construction land in the Manas River Basin in recent 57 years was the most significant with an annual change rate of 12.37%,and it was followed by the change of cultivated land with an annual change rate of 6.01%;in addition,the annual change rates of unused land,woodlands,grasslands and waters were 0.21%,-0.99%,-0.54% and -1.39% respectively;③ The land use change resulted in the change of the landscape pattern and towards a fragmental structure in the watershed.From 1958 to 2015,the numbers of patches of cultivated land,grasslands and unused land were increased most significantly,they were increased by 8.50×10⁵,6.54×10⁵ and 2.68×10⁵ respectively;on the contrary,the average areas were reduced by 1.83 km²,26.11 km² and 20.26 km² respectively,thus the fragmentation of cultivated land and grasslands occurred.Therefore,the analysis of land use/cover change in the Manas River Basin is of great significance for revealing the internal mechanism of land use change,promoting the rational development of land and water resources in the basin,and maintaining the regional ecological security.

Key words: land use/cover change, dynamic change, patch types, landscape fragmentation, Manas River Basin