An Investigation on Shenzhen Urban Green Space Changes and Their Effect on Local Eco-Environment in Recent Decades

Yue Liu,Cheng Zhong,Xueye Chen,Hui Li,Chang Li

doi:10.3390/su132212549

Abstract

Rapid urbanization and population growth impact enormous pressures on urban natural, economic and social environments. The quantitative analysis of urban green space (UGS) landscape dynamics and their impact on the urban eco-environment is of great significance for urban planning and eco-environment protection. Taking Shenzhen as an example, the UGS landscape changes and their impact on urban heat islands (UHI), surface wetness, air pollution and carbon storage were comprehensively investigated with Landsat and MODIS images. Results showed a large number of lands transferring from UGS to non-UGS from 1978 to 2018, especially for cropland. Built-up regions have adverse influences on eco-environment factors, and then they suffer high SUHI and AOD and low humidity and carbon storage. The growth of built-up areas not only enlarges the area of SUHI, but also enhances the intensity of heat islands. On the contrary, UGS patches have beneficial influences on all eco-environment factors and then enjoy a better eco-environment, including low SUHII, high surface wetness, high carbon storage and low AOD. It is expected that this study could provide scientific support for UGS plans and for conserving and sustainable urban development for developing cities.

Highlights

Rapid urbanization has resulted in a high concentration of people living in cities
The spatial-temporal dynamics of Urban green space (UGS) landscapes were analyzed based on nine quinquennial UGS maps, generated from Landsat images; urban environment factors (Land surface temperature (LST), Surface wetness, Carbon storage, Air pollution) were retrieved from images with corresponding models; lastly, the influences of UGS dynamics on environment factors were evaluated
The landscape pattern analysis shows that human activities have ever-intensively influenced the area and shape of UGS patches in the developing period

Summary

Introduction

Rapid urbanization has resulted in a high concentration of people living in cities. In2020, more than 50% of the world’s population lived in urban areas, and this number is projected to increase to 66% by 2050 [1]. Rapid urbanization has resulted in a high concentration of people living in cities. Rapid population growth and urbanization has put enormous pressures on urban natural, economic and social environments [2,3,4], resulting in urban heat islands (UHI), air pollution, water shortage, biodiversity loss, etc. Urban green space (UGS), including vegetation, water and croplands, is playing an essential role in adjusting the urban climate [11,12] by providing important ecological functions and services for urban environmental protection, public health, biodiversity conservation, etc. Maintain, utilize and conserve UGS have become important tasks for city authorities, as the effects of UGS in alleviating eco-environmental threats caused by urbanization have been broadly recognized [12,13].

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