Abstract
Drawing upon the Landsat satellite images of Nanjing from 1985, 1995, 2001, 2007, and 2013, this paper integrates the convex hull analysis and common edge analysis at double scales, and develops a comprehensive matrix analysis to distinguish the different types of urban land expansion. The results show that Nanjing experienced rapid urban expansion, dominated by a mix of residential and manufacturing land from 1985 to 2013, which in turn has promoted Nanjing’s shift from a compact mononuclear city to a polycentric one. Spatial patterns of three specific types of growth, namely infilling, extension, and enclave were quite different in four consecutive periods. These patterns result primarily from the existing topographic constraints, as well as government-oriented urban planning and policies. By intersecting the function maps, we also reveal the functional evolution of newly-developed urban land. Moreover, both self-enhancing and mutual promotion of the newly developed functions are surveyed over the last decade. Our study confirms that the integration of a multi-scale method and multi-perspective analysis, such as the spatiotemporal patterns and functional evolution, helps us to better understand the rapid urban growth in China.
Highlights
Over the past several decades, unprecedented urbanization, characterized by a demographic shift from rural to urban areas and urban land expansion, has taken place on a global level
There is a paucity of research on integrating different scales of analyses on urban growth types and functions remains largely undone
Thereafter, expansion expedited with the development of levels of development zones (DZs) and new towns in the late 1990s
Summary
Over the past several decades, unprecedented urbanization, characterized by a demographic shift from rural to urban areas and urban land expansion, has taken place on a global level. Between 1970 and 2011, the number of people dwelling in cities has increased from 1.35 billion to 3.63 billion, witnessing an increase of 169% [1]. Urban land expansion has been even more dramatic [2]. Urban areas quadrupled between 1970 and 2000 [3], which is reportedly an expansion, on average, of twice the urban population growth rates in recent years [4]. As the most fundamental component of global environmental change [5], the urban expansion phenomenon has wide-ranging significance in terms of ecosystem.
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