Abstract
The eastern coastal region of China has been experiencing rapid urbanization which has imposed great challenges on soil resources, characterized by soil sealing and fragmented soil landscapes. Taking Zhejiang Province—a fairly economically-developed and highly-urbanized region in eastern China—as a case study, a practical framework that integrates remote sensing, GIS, soil quality assessment and landscape analysis was employed to track and analyze the rapid urbanization process and spatiotemporal dynamics of soil sealing and landscape change from 1990 to 2010. Meanwhile, this paper qualitatively explored the regional inequality and characteristics in soil sealing intensity among cities of different geo-zones in Zhejiang Province. Results showed that total area of 6420 km2 had been sealed during the past two decades for the entire study area, which represents 6.2% of the provincial area. Among these sealed soils, 68.6% are fertile soils located in flat plains, such as Paddy soils. Soil landscapes became more fragmented and dispersed in distribution, more irregular and complex in shape, and less dominant and diverse in soil type, as evidenced by the constant change of various spatial landscape metrics. What is more, different geo-zones exhibited significant differences in dynamics of soil sealing intensity, soil composition and soil landscape patterns. The permanent loss of valuable soil resource and increasing fragmented soil landscape patterns concomitant with rapid urbanization processes may inevitably bring about potential threats to regional soil resources and food security.
Highlights
Unprecedented rapid urbanization and burgeoning populations worldwide have immensely accelerated the process of soil sealing
This paper provided a practical methodological framework integrating remote sensing, geographic information systems and soil landscape analysis, by proposing a feasible and cost-effective method, to explore the dynamics, and evolution of soil sealing and soil landscape change in response to the rampant urbanization process on a large scale
Urbanization triggered soil sealing has been deemed as a severe threat to soil degradation, eco-environments, food supply and security
Summary
Unprecedented rapid urbanization and burgeoning populations worldwide have immensely accelerated the process of soil sealing. Soils are often desurfaced, mixed and compacted in this process, resulting in changes in physical properties of soils, and restriction in exchange of gases, water and energy, so far as to terminate their long historical capacity of food production and other diverse ecological services, such as production of biomass and renewable energy; filtering, buffering and transformation function; and biological habitat and gene reserve [1,2] It increases the risk of potential floods and water scarcity, endangers biodiversity, influences the amount, chemical form and spatial distribution of carbon stocks as well as leads to environmental change on a larger scale [3,4,5]. The soil sealing assessment through effective monitoring schemes has grown rapidly in many European cities. It can be demonstrated by the rapid growth of scientific literature on the subject of urbanization and soil sealing, which increased from 19 papers in 1990 to more than 350 papers in
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