Quantitative Influence of Land-Use Changes and Urban Expansion Intensity on Landscape Pattern in Qingdao, China: Implications for Urban Sustainability

Jinming Yang,Huicui Lu,Shimei Li

doi:10.3390/su11216174

Abstract

The spatial structure and configuration of land-use patches, i.e., landscape patterns could affect the flow of energy and materials in inner-urban ecosystems, and hence the sustainable development of urban areas. Studying landscape pattern changes under the process of urbanization would have implicational significance to urban planning and urban sustainability. In this paper, land-use change and urban expansion intensity (UEI) were treated as the inducement factors for changes in landscape patterns, and stepwise regression and geographically weighted regression (GWR) were adapted to quantify their integrated and distributed magnitude effects on landscape patterns, respectively. The findings suggested that land-uses have different contributions to changes in landscape patterns at different urban development zones (downtown, suburban plain area and mountainous suburban areas). Furthermore, the GWR analysis results indicated that the effect of UEI on landscape patterns has spatial and temporal heterogeneity. From 1987 to 2000, the UEI had great explanatory capacity on changes in landscape patterns and helped the landscape assemble faster in the downtown and adjacent areas. However, with the shifting of the center of urban construction from downtown to the suburbs, the high explanatory ability was oriented towards suburban areas during 2000–2016 and the magnitude of influence spatially changed. Therefore, a compact city and protection policy should be adapted to different regions in the study area to achieve strong urban sustainability.

Highlights

The concentrations of population and socioeconomic activities in urban areas have led to fast urban expansion all around the world in recent decades [1,2]
The results suggested that the growth of the economy in Qingdao has transformed other land-use types such as agricultural and forest land to built-up land in the study area
A correlation analysis and a stepwise regression were adapted to investigate the quantitative relationship between land-use change and landscape patterns

Summary

Introduction

The concentrations of population and socioeconomic activities in urban areas have led to fast urban expansion all around the world in recent decades [1,2] If this aggregation phenomenon continues, land transformed into urban areas will nearly triple by the end of 2030 [3]. Other land-use types such as agricultural and forest land around urban areas will be embezzled during the rapid expansion of cities These tremendous land-use changes and intensive human activities put forward serious challenges to human and natural environment [4,5], such as the loss of biodiversity [6], an increase of the urban heat island effect [7], continuous environmental degradation [8,9], decreased watershed runoff and increased flood potential in urban areas [10], and enhanced CO2 emissions [11]. The quantitative relationship between land-use and landscape patterns is an important issue to study

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion