There are some common problems in the study of driving forces of landscape pattern change and ecological environment effects

such as the uncertainty of data

insufficiency of sample of the time series data

and "noise" disturbance.After these questions are described

this paper explains the principles and application background of gray analysis method

maximum likelihood method

and Panel Data model.Then

dynamic of yearly runoff into the Dongting Lake

hydrology response to change of landscape pattern in Xiangjiang River basin

and driving forces of landscape pattern change in Dongting Lake watershed are selected to test the result in the use of these non-statistical methods.Results show that the methods are effective

specially when they are combined with the classical statistics methods such as correlation analysis and principal components analysis.Therefore

the research efficiency and scientific level of the results can be further improved.