Simulating urban growth affected by national and regional land use policies: Case study from Wuhan, China

Abstract

The urban problems have clearly incorporated into the global sustainable development agenda and the scientific urban expansion model has won credibility for urban research and policy evaluation. From a comprehensive perspective, there is still little research on land use policy adjustments facing the potential impact of urbanization. Six different data scenarios, combined with three methods, were used to simulate the temporal and spatial characteristics of urban land use from historical to future 40 years in the context of appropriate data. The results from our study confirm the direct iterate in the initial data. Furthermore, for the long-term simulation of Wuhan, traditional methods perform better than smart methods when simulating regional urban growth changes high precision in continuous iteration for a long period was identified in CAmod1, and the CAmod3 has the highest simulation accuracy in the short-term phase. The filling type was mainly on both sides of the Yangtze River (developed area), while, the edge expansion type was mainly around the administrative boundary of the study area. We also found that the development policies in China were biased towards coastal areas in the early stage. The increase of urban land in Wuhan was slightly lagging behind. Under the control of national and local policies, a significant increase (1995–2000), and only 0.01% increase (2000–2010) in urban area development were observed in Wuhan City, China. According to the forecast results, urban land will grow by 539.73 km2 in 2035, reaching up to 719.76 km2. Therefore, it is necessary to combine multiple methods to collect suggestions in urban planning and to include the factor of policy reference when predicting the changes in future. Reasonable urbanization not only effectively improves the land utilization rate, but also promotes the harmonious and sustainable development of regional economic society.