Monitoring Land Use/Land Cover and Landscape Pattern Changes at a Local Scale: A Case Study of Pyongyang, North Korea

One method of understanding landscape pattern changes is through an understanding of land use/land cover (LULC) changes, which are closely related to landscape pattern changes. Previous studies have monitored LULC changes across North Korea but did not consider landscape changes at a local scale. Using multiple LULC products to construct sample points, the LULC was classified using a random-forest algorithm and Landsat satellite dataset. The overall accuracy of the classification was 97.66 ± 1.36%, and the Kappa coefficient was 0.95 ± 0.03. Based on the classification results, landscape indices were used to quantify and monitor landscape pattern changes. The results showed that, from 2000 to 2020, there was an increasing trend in built-up and forest areas in Pyongyang, while cropland showed a decreasing trend, and landscape fragmentation increased. However, urban expansion was not the main factor affecting fragmentation. The main factors were forest recovery and cropland reduction, leading to an increase in landscape fragmentation in Pyongyang.