A review of land use/land cover change mapping in the China-Central Asia-West Asia economic corridor countries

Large-scale projects, such as the construction of railways and highways, usually cause an extensive Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC). The China-Central Asia-West Asia Economic Corridor (CCAWAEC), one key large-scale project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), covers a region that is home to more than 1.6 billion people. Although numerous studies have been conducted on strategies and the economic potential of the Economic Corridor, reviewing LULCC mapping studies in this area has not been studied. This study provides a comprehensive review of the recent research progress and discusses the challenges in LULCC monitoring and driving factors identifying in the study area. The review will be helpful for the decision-making of sustainable development and construction in the Economic Corridor. To this end, 350 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers, as well as book chapters were analyzed based on 17 attributes, such as main driving factors of LULCC, data collection methods, classification algorithms, and accuracy assessment methods. It was observed that: (1) rapid urbanization, industrialization, population growth, and climate change have been recognized as major causes of LULCC in the study area; (2) LULCC has, directly and indirectly, caused several environmental issues, such as biodiversity loss, air pollution, water pollution, desertification, and land degradation; (3) there is a lack of well-annotated national land use data in the region; (4) there is a lack of reliable training and reference datasets to accurately study the long-term LULCC in most parts of the study area; and (5) several technical issues still require more attention from the scientific community. Finally, several recommendations were proposed to address the identified issues.