Landscape spatial pattern mainly refers to the distribution of patches,which are diffe-rent in size and shape in space owing to the interaction of various ecological activities.The study on landscape spatial pattern provides valuable information for rational management of the environmental resources,and it has been one of the key study fields in landscape ecology as a whole.By using three-period aerial photo s as basic information resource and with the support of Arc /Info,a space information storehouse is built up.Dongting Lake area,located in the middle of Yangtze River valley,lies between27°55'～30°23'N and110°50'～113°45'E,and consists of17counties with an area of28737km 2 .Because of unreasonable anthropogenic exploitation and utilization,the landscape pattern has changed re-markably.Based on the trial of models of landscape fragmentation,dominance,diversity index,evenness index,etc.,the dynamic changes of landscape patterns of Dongting Lake area are presented.The results show that it is remarkable to interchange between different landscapes,especially frequently between cultivated land and water area.The cultivated land decreased sharply by30608ha,while the water area increased48978ha.During the two decades landscape fragmentation has turned worse and diversity increased,while dominance has decreased in the whole region.Fragmentation and separation of the cultivated land,lawn and construction land show an increase process from1980to1990,and it is on the contrary in the last decade,which indicates that wetland preserves and the policy“returning farmland to lake and forest,and resett-lements”have taken effects.Because of sediment deposition and the engineering measures of“returning farmland to lake”,the distribution centroid of water area patches has moved2.31km towards southeast in the last two decades.