The Evolution Characteristics and Driving Mechanism of Urban Construction Land in Hong Kong since 1972

Abstract

As an important spatial carrier of Hong Kong’s economic development, construction land provides a critical site for Hong Kong’s economic and social activities. The development of construction land directly affects the sustainable development of the city. Therefore, analysing the spatial and temporal evolution and driving mechanism of construction land in Hong Kong is of great significance in promoting sustainable urban development. This study aimed to evaluate the evolutionary characteristics and driving mechanism of construction land of Hong Kong in the period 1972–2020. Here, we extract construction land data from 1972 based on the historical map of Hong Kong. Then, we apply ArcGIS Pro and Fragstats software to calculate the rate of land expansion, land intensity, change in the centre of gravity, and landscape pattern index of construction land in Hong Kong from 1972–2020. Analysis shows the following: (1) The expansion of construction land in Hong Kong generally showed the characteristics of “rapid at first and then slowing down”, with 2010 as the peak of the 1970–2020 timeframe. (2) The sources of construction land transfer mainly came from cultivated land, sea areas, and forest land, which were mainly distributed in the New Territories. (3) The centre of gravity of construction land in Hong Kong showed the spatial characteristics of “slowly shifting to the northwest” during the study period, indicating that Hong Kong’s polycentric urban structure has been continuously strengthened. (4) The Spiltting index showed a tortuous upward trend, and the index of Mean Euclidean nearest neighbour distance showed a steady downward trend, which indicated that the landscape connectivity of city construction land steadily increased while the degree of fragmentation gradually increased. (5) The driving factors behind the expansion of Hong Kong construction land comes from population, economic, and traffic factors; the support factors come from location and policy factors; the elasticity factors mainly come from reclamation projects; the resistance factors mainly come from the restrictions of environmental protection departments, NGOs, and relevant laws on land reclamation.