Abstract
It is important to analyze the expansion of an urban area and the factors that drive its expansion. Therefore, this study is based on Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) night lighting data, using the landscape index, spatial expansion strength index, compactness index, urban land fractal index, elasticity coefficient, the standard deviation ellipse, spatial correlation analysis, and partial least squares regression to analyze the spatial and temporal evolution of urban land expansion and its driving factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) over a long period of time. The results show the following: Through the calculation of the eight landscape pattern indicators, we found that during the study period, the number of cities and towns and the area of urban built-up areas in the YREB are generally increasing. Furthermore, the variations in these landscape pattern indicators not only show more frequent exchanges and interactions between the cities and towns of the YREB, but also reflect significant instability and irregularity of the urbanization development in the YREB. The spatial expansion intensity indices of 1992–1999, 1999–2006, and 2006–2013 were 0.03, 0.16, and 0.34, respectively. On the whole, the urban compactness of the YREB decreased with time, and the fractal dimension increased slowly with time. Moreover, the long axis and the short axis of the standard deviation ellipse of the YREB underwent a small change during the inspection period. The spatial distribution generally showed the pattern of “southwest-north”. In terms of gravity shift, during the study period, the center of gravity moved from northeast to southwest. In addition, the Moran's I values for the four years of 1992, 1999, 2006, and 2013 were 0.451, 0.495, 0.506, and 0.424, respectively. Furthermore, by using correlation analysis, we find that the correlation coefficients between these four driving indicators and the urban expansion of the YREB were: 0.963, 0.998, 0.990 and 0.994, respectively. Through the use of partial least squares regression, we found that in 1992-2013, the four drivers of urban land expansion in the YREB were ranked as follows: gross domestic product (GDP), total fixed asset investment, urban population, total retail sales of consumer goods.
Highlights
Urbanization is the only way for China to build a well-off society and achieve modernization
After using the stratified Support Vector Machine (SVM) method to extract the urban land area of the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 1992 to 2013, the data was exported to the year-by-year TIF format, and the year-by-year TIF format data was imported into FRAG-STATS 4.2
We used nighttime lighting data and nine methods, including a comparison method based on auxiliary data, the landscape index method, a spatial expansion strength index, a compactness index, an urban land fractal index, the elasticity coefficient, and the standard deviation ellipse, to analyze the evolution of urban expansion in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China
Summary
Urbanization is the only way for China to build a well-off society and achieve modernization. China’s urbanization will determine China’s future, and the process of urbanization in the world [1]. Urban agglomeration is the main area of new national urbanization and a core strategic area of economic development, which plays an irreplaceable role in promoting urbanization in China [2]. China is one of the three countries with the fastest urban expansion in the world. In 2011, China’s urban population exceeded the rural population for the first time, and the urbanization rate reached 51.3% [3]. In the process of urbanization in China, the expansion of urban agglomerations plays a vital role. Urban land expansion has long been one of the focuses of academic research and discussion [4]
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