Abstract
Hydrological problems, such as flood disasters, can be caused by the influence of urbanization on river network structures in plain areas. Taking the main urban region of Zhengzhou city as the research area, based on six remote sensing images from 1992 to 2015, the modified normalized difference water index method and a land-use transfer matrix were used to reconstruct river network data to study the temporal and spatial changes in the river system. In addition, the analytic hierarchy process and the entropy weight method were used to construct pattern indexes of the river system to quantitatively evaluate the inner relationship between the urbanization process and the river network structure in the plain area. The results showed that the percentages of arable land, forest and grassland, water, and unused land in Zhengzhou that was transferred to construction land from 1992 to 2015 were 59.10%, 51.05%, 29.83%, and 58.76%, respectively. In the past 34 years, the morphological indices, structural indices, and connectivity indices of the river system experienced a trend of high to low, and then increased, with the structural indices being significantly correlated with construction land use (p < 0.05). The regression equation R2 between urbanization level and river length, water area, river network density, water surface rate, connection rate, and connectivity ranged from 0.677 to 0.966, which could well reflect the response relationship between urbanization and the river network. In addition, the outflow was greater than the inflow, which has destroyed the natural structure of the channel.
Highlights
The structural characteristics of river networks have an important influence on their storage function, and a reduction in the storage capacity of river networks due to urbanization development is the main cause of current urban flooding [5]
The results show that the special indicators of the river network structure (L R, Aω, DR, WP, β and γ) are significantly correlated with construction land, and their correlation coefficients are all below 0.05
We further provide an evaluation of the inner relationship between the urbanization level and the characteristic values of the river network structure
Summary
River networks are important for the survival and reproduction of animals and plants, supporting various functions of human society and essentially maintaining ecological stability [1,2]. Since the 20th century and during the period of rapid urbanization, human activities associated with urbanization have resulted in nearly 60% of the changes in rivers worldwide [3,4]. Human activities determine changes in the structural details of river networks. The structural characteristics of river networks have an important influence on their storage function, and a reduction in the storage capacity of river networks due to urbanization development is the main cause of current urban flooding [5]. Ecological problems are becoming increasingly prominent, a fact which seriously threatens the sustainable development of human society [6]
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