Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of the land use and land cover change (LUCC) of major infrastructure construction as exemplified by the case of Hangzhou International Airport (HIA, Hangzhou, China), which is one of the busiest airports in Eastern China. The airport’s effect on LUCC is evaluated by comparing the actual pattern from 1996 to 2001 with a counterfactual simulated land use pattern that would have occurred without the intervention of airport construction. This research is based on land use maps from Landsat images that were analyzed by supervised classification and visual interpretation. To simulate the land use pattern occurring without airport construction, the counterfactual, we applied a cellular automata (CA)–Markov model. Through before and after comparison, we found that cultivated land has decreased and that constructed land has increased because of airport construction. However, according to the counterfactual scenario, airport construction to some extent prevented a decrease in cultivated land and decelerated the expansion of constructed land at a small scale and in the short term. We discuss several reasons for this result, including governmental regulations, such as the setting of the airport clearance area for the safety of plane take-off and landing, the adverse effects of aviation noise or pollution, which may limit the construction activities in the surrounding areas of the airport, and, importantly, the unique land use and land management system in China, mainly the cultivated land requisition-compensation balance policy. We conclude that (1) the counterfactual CA–Markov model simulation is a suitable and unbiased way of evaluating the effect of infrastructure on LUCC that can solve the deficiency in the previous literature relying on before and after comparisons and (2) regulatory, economic, and institutional factors should be considered when explaining and assessing the LUCC due to large infrastructure projects, such as airports, in China and in other countries.
Highlights
Large-scale infrastructure constructions have regained attention in both developed and developing countries in recent years
This paper presents an analysis of the land use and land cover change (LUCC) of major infrastructure construction as exemplified by the case of Hangzhou International Airport (HIA, Hangzhou, China), which is one of the busiest airports in Eastern China
Infrastructure construction is one of the main tasks for developing and developed countries in the long run, and it is essential to evaluate the effect of infrastructure on the natural system, regarding the effect on land resources, which are the main carrier for infrastructure, to maintain environmental sustainability
Summary
Large-scale infrastructure constructions have regained attention in both developed and developing countries in recent years. An example is the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (referred to as the Belt and Road Initiative, or R&B) proposed by China in 2013 [1], which aim to connect Asia, Africa, and Europe, including developed and developing countries, through traffic infrastructure. Research based on historical cross-country data has found a significant positive association between infrastructure investments and economic growth in the long run [6,7,8]. The construction and the very operation of infrastructure require a considerable input of labor, capital, and land resources, which may be viewed as a way of increasing employment and capital investment in both the short term and the long run [9,10]. Enhancing the transport network can increase the output per labor force by reducing the commuting time [12], which can accelerate the speed of social and economic activities
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