Abstract
China is undergoing rapid urbanization, which has caused undesirable urban sprawl and ecological deterioration. Urban growth boundaries (UGBs) are an effective measure to restrict the irrational urban sprawl and protect the green space. However, the delimiting method and control measures of the UGBs is at the exploratory stage in China. In this paper, a cellular automata model based on multi-criteria evaluation (MCE-CA) was proposed to delimit the UGBs. The MCE-CA model considers influencing factors related to urban growth and generates UGBs based on spatiotemporally dynamic simulations. The MCE-CA model was applied to generate the UGBs of Jiayuguan City in 2020 and 2030, the results show that the simulation accuracy is higher than 0.8 and the compactness increases to 0.23, which demonstrates that the MCE-CA model is an effective model for delimiting UGBs. Moreover, the MCE-CA model can corporate the contradiction between environmental protection and urban development, promoting urban smart growth and sustainable development. UGBs is an effective tool for China to realize ecological civilization construction and improve the spatial governance ability, and the MCE-CA model can be used to assist planners in delimiting future UGBs, this study provides a methodological reference for future research of UGBs in Chinese cities.
Highlights
Urban land is where most human activities in the world take place
The cellular automata model based on multi-criteria evaluation (MCE-CA) organically combining “positive” and “anti-planning” thinking was applied to explore the delimitation of the Urban growth boundaries (UGBs) in Jiayuguan City
We believe that the MCE-CA model is an effective model to delimit UGBs, and it can provide a methodological reference for future research into UGBs in Chinese cities
Summary
Urban land is where most human activities in the world take place. Its evolving dynamic characteristics profoundly reflect the urbanization process and the changing rules and contradictions of urban spatial structure [1,2]. The number of cities with populations more than 0.5 million increased enormously from 12 in 1949 to 297 by the end of 2018, and the urban land area increased from 5600 km in 1949 to 74,800 km in 2018. Determining how to effectively curb urban sprawl and coordinate the contradiction between urban development and ecological conservation has become an urgent problem for China in the new era [9,10]. Urban growth boundaries (UGBs) are an effective tool to coordinate the relationship between urban development and environment protection and promote the city sustainable development [11]. The American Planning Association (APA) recommends that UGBs be established “to promote compact and contiguous development patterns that can be efficiently served by public services and to preserve or protect open space, agricultural land, and environmentally sensitive areas” [13]. Compared with the Western countries, the study of UGBs in China has come later
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