Revealing patterns of greenspace in urban areas resulting from three urban growth types

Abstract

Many studies have revealed the processes of urban expansion in numerous cities around the world based on three urban growth types: outlying, edge-expansion, and infilling. However, few studies have explored the landscape patterns inside newly developed urban areas that are defined based on the three growth types. In this paper, we used Landsat images to investigate the urban growth of Shenzhen from 1979 to 2017. In addition, we used high-resolution images to compare the pattern of greenspace in areas that developed from outlying, edge expansion, and infilling. Our results showed that Shenzhen experienced two expansion phases, which is in accordance with the diffusion-coalescence hypothesis. In addition, we found that the greenspace patterns in edge expansion and outlying patches were similar, but were different from those of infilling. In the infilling patches, the greenspace percentage, edge density (ED) and largest patch index (LPI) were significantly larger than those in the patches of the other two expansion types. This study linked landscape patterns and urban growth types that enhanced our understanding of the process of urban expansion and may provide valuable information for local policy making and urban planning.