An insight on drivers of land use change at regional scale

Abstract

The studies of driving forces of regional land use change (LUC) are to reveal the real motivation behind the LUC and its interacting mechanism, so as to simulate and predict the process of LUC. Presently, studies rooting from different natural and socio-economic backgrounds and from different scales have deepened the people’s understanding and cognition to driving forces of regional LUC. Biophysical driving forces are relatively stable, and have the cumulating effects. Human driving forces are relatively active, and are main driving forces of short-term regional LUC. Existing regional LUC models can answer the three main problems: which contribution (why), which location (where) and what rate (when). But, regional land use system is defined as the self-organized system, usually affected by the critical value area and sudden change, and controlled by different stages. To reduce the impact of critical threshold and break on land use system, the studies of LUC driving forces will aim at following priority areas: data linkage between remote sensing and no-remote sensing data; underlying driving force identification; driving factor quantification; driving factor scale dependence; and driving process integration simulation.