Abstract
The Yangtze River Middle Reaches Megalopolis (YRMRM) is the primary urban cluster in central China, which is of vital ecological and economic importance over the Yangtze River basin. To fill the gap on updated evidence needed to support sustainable spatial planning and development in the YRMRM, we systematically characterise its urban spatial patterns and analyse their changes from 2000 to 2015 from two levels. At the regional level, landscape indices are used to depict urban morphology from four aspects, including fragmentation, complexity, contiguity and dispersion. At the local level, spatial autocorrelation analysis is conducted to detect whether the urban morphological patterns, as described by the four landscape indices, are clustered locally. The results showed an increasingly accelerated urban expansion in the YRMRM (approximately 250 km−2/a), contributed mainly by agricultural land conversion (60–80%, depending on subdivisions). An uneven spatial development pattern is identified in the three key metropolitan areas in the YRMRM. The Wuhan Metropolitan Area develops in a continuous and less fragmented fashion, with increased shape complexity and local dispersion. The spatial pattern of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Metropolitan Area seems to be increasingly fragmented, complex and dispersed. The spatial development pattern in the Poyang Lake Metropolitan Area is overall continuous with an increasingly complex shape and severe local dispersion. Using landscape indices as indicators of sustainability, we discuss the potential environmental and climatic challenges in the YRMRM and the three metropolitan areas. Our results could help to raise awareness and concern for well-targeted management and planning in specific areas.
Highlights
Exploring the patterns of land-use/cover change (LUCC) is regarded as an efficient way to understand the earth’s surface change owing to anthropogenic activities [1]
We found that urban expansion and agricultural shrinkage were the major processes driving the dynamics of a rapid LUCC between 2000 and 2015 in the Yangtze River Middle Reaches Megalopolis (YRMRM) (Figure 2)
2.73% of the whole of the YRMRM, and 4.41%, 1.98% and 0.57% of Wuhan Metropolitan Area (WHM), Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Metropolitan Area (CZT) and Poyang Lake Metropolitan Area (PLM), respectively. Such an increasing pattern was found to be primarily contributed by local urban expansion in WHM between 2000 and 2005 (194.82 km2), and between 2005 and 2010 (775.26 km2), and by both WHM and CZT between 2010 and 2015 (737.55 km2 and 705.28 km2)
Summary
Exploring the patterns of land-use/cover change (LUCC) is regarded as an efficient way to understand the earth’s surface change owing to anthropogenic activities [1]. The sustainable management of LUCC could improve the supply of ecosystem services, such as supporting biodiversity, regulating global warming, supplying foods stably, purifying air, etc. With rapid economic development and population growth, China has experienced dramatic LUCC over the past few decades [7]. Rapid and uncontrolled urbanisation is often accompanied by negative environmental impacts, such as habitat destruction (other land conversions into construction land), biodiversity loss, and change of water cycle (an increase of impervious surface). A comprehensive understanding of the spatio-temporal changes in urban land cover is the prerequisite for the next-step analysis of their consequences on the ecosystem and living environment
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
