Urban Landscape Pattern Research Articles

Urban Landscape Patterns of Iași City. Analysing City Relations Between Urban Land use, Topography and Inhabitants Pressure Upon Urban Morphology

The quality of urban environment has increasingly been regarded as an important matter, being analysed from different points of view (quality of life, economic trends, accessibility to major facilities etc.). In this study case, we use Iași Municipality for analysing city-wide relationships betwen anthtropogenic factors (landuse, connectivity, population density, occurence of urban facilities) and natural ones (topographic features transformed into landslide susceptability). The indicators taken into consideration, appended into an factorial analyses are predictors for changing environment in a dynamic context. Connectivity is the most influent factor, having the capability to reshape the structure of density of population or occurence of facilities whence they modify the shape of the entire city. The landscape patterns of Iași city reveal a different image upon landuse of the city, creating an integral display upon the urban area analysed.

Object-based spatial cluster analysis of urban landscape pattern using nighttime light satellite images: a case study of China

Previous studies have demonstrated urban built-up areas can be derived from nighttime light satellite (DMSP-OLS) images at the national or continent scale. This paper presents a novel object-based method for detecting and characterizing urban spatial clusters from nighttime light satellite images automatically. First, urban built-up areas, derived from the regionally adaptive thresholding of DMSP-OLS nighttime light data, are represented as discrete urban objects. These urban objects are treated as basic spatial units and quantified in terms of geometric and shape attributes and their spatial relationships. Next, a spatial cluster analysis is applied to these basic urban objects to form a higher level of spatial units – urban spatial clusters. The Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) is used to represent spatial proximity relationships among urban objects. An algorithm based on competing propagation of objects is proposed to construct the MST of urban objects. Unlike previous studies, the distance between urban objects (i.e., the boundaries of urban built-up areas) is adopted to quantify the edge weight in MST. A Gestalt Theory-based method is employed to partition the MST of urban objects into urban spatial clusters. The derived urban spatial clusters are geographically delineated through mathematical morphology operation and construction of minimum convex hull. A series of landscape ecologic and statistical attributes are defined and calculated to characterize these clusters. Our method has been successfully applied to the analysis of urban landscape of China at the national level, and a series of urban clusters have been delimited and quantified.

Scale effects on spatially varying relationships between urban landscape patterns and water quality.

Scientific interpretation of the relationships between urban landscape patterns and water quality is important for sustainable urban planning and watershed environmental protection. This study applied the ordinary least squares regression model and the geographically weighted regression model to examine the spatially varying relationships between 12 explanatory variables (including three topographical factors, four land use parameters, and five landscape metrics) and 15 water quality indicators in watersheds of Yundang Lake, Maluan Bay, and Xinglin Bay with varying levels of urbanization in Xiamen City, China. A local and global investigation was carried out at the watershed-level, with 50 and 200m riparian buffer scales. This study found that topographical features and landscape metrics are the dominant factors of water quality, while land uses are too weak to be considered as a strong influential factor on water quality. Such statistical results may be related with the characteristics of land use compositions in our study area. Water quality variations in the 50m buffer were dominated by topographical variables. The impact of landscape metrics on water quality gradually strengthen with expanding buffer zones. The strongest relationships are obtained in entire watersheds, rather than in 50 and 200m buffer zones. Spatially varying relationships and effective buffer zones were verified in this study. Spatially varying relationships between explanatory variables and water quality parameters are more diversified and complex in less urbanized areas than in highly urbanized areas. This study hypothesizes that all these varying relationships may be attributed to the heterogeneity of landscape patterns in different urban regions. Adjustment of landscape patterns in an entire watershed should be the key measure to successfully improving urban lake water quality.

Assessment of landscape pattern effect and ecosystem services of island urban forest

Based on five Landsat TM /ETM+remote sensing images of Xiamen Island acquired from 1987 to 2007,the authors carried out the quantitative analysis and evaluation of urban landscape pattern effects on urban forest ecosystem services by using such methods as remote sensing interpretation of the landscape elements,landscape index,ecosystem services evaluation and gray relational analysis. Some conclusions have been reached: ① The area of the forest in Xiamen Island had been reduced from 1987,and reached its lowest value in 2002; correspondingly,the value of ecosystem services reached its lowest value of 1. 281 billion yuan per year in 2002. The value of ecosystem services increased to 1. 363 billion yuan per year in 2007,of which the water conservation service value was the largest share,followed by carbon oxygen release service. ② The results of gray correlation analysis show that the urban forest ecosystem service values in Xiamen Island have a remarkable correlation with the patch density,patch number and Shannon diversity index. The lower correlation coefficient with the built- up area indicates that the land used to built- up in Xiamen Island increased at the expense of the other landscape. The urban forest in the island was under better protection.

Coupled dynamics of urban landscape pattern and socioeconomic drivers in Shenzhen, China

The effects of land use policy and socioeconomic changes on urban landscape dynamics have been increasingly investigated around the world, but our knowledge of the underlying processes of these effects is still inadequate for sustainably managing urban ecosystems. Thus, the main goal of this study was to understand: (1) the changes in urban landscape, population, and economic conditions over a 36-year period, and (2) the coupled dynamics of land use policy, landscape structure, major demographic features, and three kinds of industries in one of the most dazzling modern cities of China—the Shenzhen special economic zone (SEZ). The landscape expansion index was used to explore the developed-land expansion under different land use policies while structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the relationship among three variables (Land Cover Change or LCC, Economy, and Population). We found that the urban expansion during the four periods (1973–1979, 1979–1995, 1995–2003, and 2003–2009) was not always at the expense of urban vegetation cover. The importance of each socioeconomic driver during the four periods was not consistent over time, with policy shifts as the primary driver. Our SEM showed that Economy played a more important role than Population in driving LCC in the Shenzhen SEZ. Meanwhile, the secondary and tertiary industries had a stronger influence than the primary industry; and the floating population had a greater effect than the registered permanent population.

城市景观格局演变的水环境效应研究综述

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 城市景观格局演变的水环境效应研究综述 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201306071391 作者: 作者单位: 中国科学院城市环境研究所;中国科学院大学,中国科学院城市环境研究所 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 国家自然科学基金项目（30800148）；厦门市科技计划项目（3502Z20122001） Research review on effects of urban landscape pattern changes on water environment Author: Affiliation: Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:人类活动导致的城市土地利用覆被变化在景观生态学上表现为城市景观类型的更替和城市景观格局的演变。我国城市景观格局中自然植被景观基质大幅被人工硬化地面所取代，自然景观斑块破碎化，城市道路和排水管网等人工廊道大量增加，造成“源”“汇”景观的比例失衡和格局失调，从而产生城市景观格局演变的水环境负效应，如非点源污染、水生生态系统失衡和城市内涝等，且水环境负效应存在时间尺度差异和空间尺度响应多样性。对城市景观类型及其格局演变产生的城市水环境效应相关研究进行总结，针对现有研究中存在的城市景观格局演变带来的生态过程变化研究较少、影响城市水环境的景观格局变化阈值不明确、研究结果推广难和重复性较差、人工廊道与城市水环境效应关系关注度较低和水环境负效应综合度研究欠缺等不足之处，提出未来研究的着力点，对实现可持续城市具有一定意义。 Abstract:Urban water environment is an important part of urban ecosystem including natural and man-made water, and the natural elements and urban landscape which are closely related to water at catchment scale. Healthy urban water environment could product positive ecological effects such as water retention and impoundment, environmental decontamination, material transportation, making energy flow smoothly and conserving biodiversity. However, the change of urban land cover induces the deterioration of urban water environment and leads to negative water environment effects, such as non-point pollution, imbalance of aquatic ecosystem and urban flooding. The replacement of urban landscape types and evolution of urban landscape pattern caused by human activities display at following aspects: widespread vegetation matrix is largely replaced by artificial hardened ground while natural landscape patches are fragmentized and manual corridors including urban roads and drainage network increase sharply, resulting in the disproportion of water pollution "source" and "sink" landscape types and landscape pattern. Through statistical analysis and model simulation, researchers at home and abroad find that: the cultivated land and urban construction land are the main sources of non-point pollution while natural vegetation landscape types contribute to the reduction of non-point source pollution. Urban surface hardening reduces the environmental capacity of urban water environment by influencing urban hydrological cycle, for instance, surface runoff, evaporation and infiltration and so on. Together with environmental capacity reduction, the eutrophication of urban water environment makes negative effects on the balance of aquatic ecosystem. Negative water environment effects responding to urban landscape pattern will change with spatial and temporal scales. This paper summarizes current researches about the effects of urban landscape types and pattern evolution on water environment and points out the deficiencies of recent researches, such as the lack of specific research coupling landscape pattern change and ecological process, the indeterminacy of the landscape pattern threshold influencing urban water environment, the difficulty in popularizing and repeating research results, neglecting the relationship between urban artificial corridor and water environment effects, and the lack of comprehensive research about negative water environment effects. At last, we put forward five key points of future researches: the lagging response of urban water environment to the change of urban landscape pattern; the differences of water environment effects with different types and distributions; the combined influences from the urban landscape pattern, including matrix, corridor and patch; development of new model which concentrates on urban water environmental effects; a set of related index for urban planning and urban water environmental effects. Our study will contribute to better understanding of urban sustainability. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献

Dynamic Process of Urban Landscape Pattern Based on GeoCA-Urban Model - Taking the Neijiang City as Example

Neijiang city was taken as the research area. Based on the loosening linking between GIS and CA model, this paper construct a model for dynamic process of urban landscape pattern and predict it by the model. The results show that: (1) The CA model can simulate the dynamic process of landscape pattern for Neijiang City; (2) According to the different research focuses, criteria for the classification of landscape types should be different; (3) The best scale grid for Neijiang City is 60m ×60m; (4) 2. 875 calculate circles reflect 1 year time passed.

Examining the Satellite-Detected Urban Land Use Spatial Patterns Using Multidimensional Fractal Dimension Indices

Understanding the spatial patterns of urban land use at both the macro and the micro levels is a central issue in global change studies. Due to the nonlinear features associated with land use spatial patterns, it is currently necessary to provide some distinct analysis methods to analyze them across a range of remote sensing imagery resolutions. The objective of our study is to quantify urban land use patterns from various perspectives using multidimensional fractal methods. Three commonly used fractal dimensions, i.e., the boundary dimension, the radius dimension, and the information entropy dimension, are introduced as the typical indices to examine the complexity, centrality and balance of land use spatial patterns, respectively. Moreover, a new lacunarity dimension for describing the degree of self-organization of urban land use at the macro level is presented. A cloud-free Landsat ETM+ image acquired on 17 September 2010 was used to extract land use information in Wuhan, China. The results show that there are significant linear relationships represented by good statistical fitness related to these four indices. The results indicate that rapid urbanization has substantially affected the urban landscape pattern, and different land use types show different spatial patterns in response. This analysis reveals that multiple fractal/nonfractal indices provides a more comprehensive understanding of the spatial heterogeneity of urban land use spatial patterns than any single fractal dimension index. These findings can help us to gain deeper insight into the complex spatial patterns of urban land use.

Guide of Urban Open Space for Research on the Urban Landscape in Xi'an

A series of urban construction activities has taken place in Xian in recent years. Changes can be shown on whether urban landscape, ecological environment or culture aspect. This paper will first discriminate some basic concepts about urban open space, and then bring the research on the urban landscape evolution of Xian. The research will focus on the development and changes of different type of urban public space and based on case studies which mainly about scale, style, colour, pattern, vegetation, place and ecology of urban landscape. Urban public space mainly includes urban green space and urban open space which will be squares and streets. The most important aim is though represent of phenomenal to reveal the objective law and the agent of the evolution of urban landscape in Xian.

Linking landscape patterns with ecological functions: A case study examining the interaction between landscape heterogeneity and carbon stock of urban forests in Xiamen, China

The relationship between landscape patterns and functions is the central research theme of landscape ecology and forest management. This study assesses the interactive relationship of landscape heterogeneity with the carbon stock of urban forests in the city of Xiamen, Fujian Province, China, using spatial and statistical analyses. The objectives of this study are to explore the most appropriate scale for studying urban landscape patterns in Xiamen, analyze the dynamics of forested landscape heterogeneity at different scales, and identify suitable landscape metrics that are closely related to and can be used to describe vegetation carbon density. This study is based on data from 31,933 plots measured during the years 1972, 1996, and 2006 and collected as part of the Chinese National Forest Resource Planning and Inventory Program. A total of 12 landscape metrics were used to quantify spatial patterns and were subsequently related to vegetation carbon density. The results show that the most appropriate scale for landscape pattern analysis is 80km2. With urbanization advancing between 1972 and 1996, landscape heterogeneity at both class and landscape levels showed a significant increase and then remained stable from 1996 to 2006. Shannon’s diversity index was the most sensitive landscape metric among all selected landscape heterogeneity metrics, and its ability to explain the variation of carbon density was better than that of forest types. This study clearly shows that information on spatial patterns of landscape heterogeneity is important for urban forest landscape planning to achieve forest carbon objective.

中国东西部中小城市景观格局及其驱动力

Urbanization is an important aspect of land use and cover change,which profoundly affects ecosystem composition,structure and function as well as regional landscape pattern and processes.The rapid development of small-and medium-sized cities is a significant characteristic of global urbanization today,and is expected to remain so for decades in the future.During the last 50 years,the fastest growing cities in China are small-and medium-sized cities with populations ≤ 500 thousands.Thus,small-and medium-sized cities are important for regional social development and urbanization,which has significant impacts on the sustainability of the regions and the entire nation.In the past 20 years,because of the rapidly rising number of small-and medium-sized cities,their urbanization effects have received increasing attention.Understanding the generalities and idiosyncrasies of the urbanization patterns and processes of these cities is crucial for sustainable development.However,much of the current research on urbanization has focused primarily on the large cities with populations 500 thousands.Few studies have investigated the complexity and dynamics of small-and medium-sized cities,including the relationship between urban landscape patterns and urban ecosystem functions. In this study,we selected 24 small-and medium-sized cities in Xinjiang and the Yangtze River Delta region to quantify landscape change and underlying driving forces in the two regions using a comparative approach.Based on the results of our study,we concluded:(1) In the two regions,urban land type had the highest growth rate with a mean annual increase of 5%,suggesting a rapid urbanization process from 1986 to 2000.However,the specific changes of land use and land cover types differed in the two regions.In the Yangtze River Delta,cropland declined in area significantly more than other types,with a mean annual decrease rate of 62.87 km2.In the Xinjiang region,the areas of unused land and grassland declined substantially during the study period.The mean annual decrease rates of these two land-use types were 123.6 km2 and 90.2 km2,respectively.(2) The overall pattern of landscape change in the two regions was similar during the 15 years.The level of landscape fragmentation,landscape diversity,and patch shape complexity all increased.However,the urban landscape pattern among different cities in the Yangtze River Delta region became more homogeneous compared to the Xinjiang region.(3) Our comparison of the main forces driving landscape change in the two regions indicated that the changes in croplands contributed significantly to the changes in the overall landscape pattern of small-and medium-sized cities.In the Yangtze River Delta,the main driving forces of landscape change were associated with population growth and rural-to-urban migration of people.A large quantity of cropland was used for urban construction and became increasingly fragmented as urbanization unfolded.In contrast,the main driver of landscape change in the Xinjiang region was related predominantly to the increase in croplands due to population growth and immigration.In this case,the increased human activity resulted in the increase in cropland.Urban sprawl contributed relatively less to landscape pattern change in Xinjiang than in the Yangtze River Delta.In addition,the expansion of croplands not only took up a large amount of grassland resources,but also intensified land use on the grasslands,consequently leading to degradation of the grassland ecosystems. These findings provide useful information for dealing with ecological and environmental problems induced by rapid urbanization,and for sustainable development of small-and medium-sized cities in China.Further studies are needed to investigate the processes and mechanisms of how urbanization affects biodiversity and ecosystem services in these small-to medium-sized cities.

城市典型水域景观的热环境效应

城市热岛效应是当前快速城市化进程中最具代表性的生态环境问题之一。热岛效应进一步影响着城市气候变化与城市可持续发展。现存大量研究证明了土地覆被改变导致的热辐射变化及人为热释放共同作用产生了城市热岛。然而,当前对缓解城市热岛效应要素的研究并不多见。以上海市中心城区为例,首先基于SPOT5影像的分类,提取了城市水域景观,再利用Landsat 7的ETM+的热红外波段,定量反演了城市地表热环境温度,然后利用GIS的空间分析功能,探讨了城市水域景观对热环境的影响。研究揭示水域景观在城市热环境中表现出明显的低温效应,而面状水域景观的热环境效应要强于线状河流景观。面状水域景观对热环境影响随着与热岛中心距离的增加而明显降低,此外还受到周围土地覆被的影响。线状河流景观的宽度与流经区域共同决定了其对城市热环境的影响能力。因此,在城市规划设计中,从缓解城市热岛效应出发,水域生态功能区的形态与空间设置可作为考虑因素之一。;Rapid urban expansion has profoundly impacted on urban biodiversity, ecosystem functions, regional climate change, and the quality of life. One of the ecological consequences of urban expansion is the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomenon, which is formed when higher atmospheric and surface temperatures in urbanized areas are observed over the surrounding rural area. Urban thermal environment problems caused by UHI have some further impacts on energy consumption, human health and urban sustainable development. As a synthesis representation of urban environment effect, UHI is jointly determined by the physical properties of land surface and heat release by related socioeconomic activities. Within the urbanized area there are diverse landscape types, such as urban building landscape, road landscape, green space, water body, and so on. Among various urban landscape types, the thermal environment effect of water landscape is quite different. It is important to study how the water body might influence the urban thermal environment. The SPOT 5 and Landsat 7 ETM+ images are applied to derive the spatial pattern of urban water landscape and land surface temperature in Shanghai, and spatial analysis technique will be used to explore the thermal environment effect of water landscape. An intense urban heat island effect is identified in Shanghai City, with its center located on the west bank of Huangpu River. At the same time, a cold island effect is detected for the water landscape patches and corridors. Statistical significance is not found between area and perimeter of water patches (or river corridors) and their impact on local thermal environment. However, the water patch has a stronger thermal environment effect than the river corridor. The impact of water patch decreases as the distance to UHI center increases. For instance, the temperature of water patch in Luxun Park (the closest to the UHI center among all water patches) is 3.65℃ lower than the average temperature of its surrounding region, with only 2.60℃ lower than the average temperature of the region where Century Park is located, which is much further to the UHI center. Besides the distance to the UHI center, the impact of water patch on nearby area is also determined by the land surface composition. For instance, the surrounding area with more vegetation has a lower temperature than the area with more impervious surface. River corridors also influence the local thermal environment. Huangpu River, Suzhou River, Yunzao River and Chuanyang River are compared based on a buffering method, with the river width and the location of the river corridor as the two key factors on the local thermal environment. Flowing through UHI center and with the largest river width, Huangpu River has much higher impact on the thermal environment of the surrounding areas. The findings in this study are helpful to provide some effective policy implications for urban planning and design.

城市景观格局演变的生态环境效应研究进展

Urbanization refers to a process in which an increasing proportion of an entire population lives in cities and the suburbs of cities.A primary goal of urbanization is to develop a harmonious region between natural landscapes and human habitation.However,urbanized ecosystems and urban human populations are expanding around the world,causing many negative environmental effects,such as traffic jams,resource shortage,environmental pollution,and ecological degradation.Therefore,urban landscape changes and their eco-environmental effects have been received lots of attentions from researchers,managers,and the public.This paper presents a comprehensive review of researches on urban landscape changes and their eco-environmental effects.These eco-environmental effects identified in this study include urban heat island effect,air pollution,water issues,destruction of habitats,ecosystem service changes,and so on.The paper points out problems in current studies of urban landscape patterns:(1) Current studies are mainly implemented on the development and application of quantitative indices to quantify landscape pattern changes,whereas few has focused on the impacts of landscape pattern changes on the regional ecological security;(2) Although more recent efforts have been attempted to study the relationship between urban heat island effect and landscape pattern changes,relatively less results is available to explain the thermal mechanism of urban heat island effects;(3) Most studies focus on the effect of urban green landscape on air pollutant absorption,air particle retard,the comprehensive effects of urban landscape change on atmospheric quality and dust haze effect,are however less studied;(4) Attempts have been made to study urban ecological land uses to improve regional ecological security,but quantitative guidelines in relation to the landscape planning is also needed more integrated efforts among different disciplines.We suggest that more efforts should be implemented on integrating spatial data in multiple scales to reveal the environmental effects of landscape changes and their physical mechanisms.Moreover,multi-objective spatial optimization model for ecological land-use allocation should be developed by integrating the models of urban sprawl and ecosystem service evaluation.

A hierarchical patch mosaic ecosystem model for urban landscapes: Model development and evaluation

Urbanization effects on ecosystem functions are both important and complex, characterized by scale multiplicity, spatial heterogeneity, and intensive human disturbances. Integrating the hierarchical structure of urban landscape pattern with ecosystem processes through simulation modeling can facilitate our understanding of human–environment interactions in urban environment. Current ecosystem models often focus on plant physiological and biogeochemical processes in homogeneous land covers, incapable of addressing the structural complexity in urban landscapes with multiple anthropogenic drivers across a range of spatial scales. Here we present the Hierarchical Patch Mosaic-Urban Ecosystem Model (HPM-UEM), a multi-scaled model that explicitly treats spatial pattern and hierarchical structure of urban landscape by incorporating both top-down controls and bottom-up mechanisms in urban environment. By addressing six hierarchical levels from individual plant to the urbanized region, HPM-UEM provides a “hierarchical ladder” to scale up local ecosystem functions across the nested urban land hierarchies (i.e., land cover, land use, landscape, and the urbanized region), and facilitate linking ecosystem processes and socioeconomic drivers. By organizing human influences in a spatially nested hierarchical patch mosaic structure, HPM-UEM models the complex spatiotemporal pattern of multiple environmental constraints on urban ecosystem functions. The model was evaluated based on extensive datasets developed by the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, especially the Central Arizona-Phoenix (CAP) LTER. Model testing results showed that HPM-UEM predicted both C fluxes and spatial pattern of C stocks with reasonable accuracy. HPM-UEM enabled us to assess spatial patterns and multiple-scaled dynamics of C cycle of the urban landscape, revealing the distinct productivities and C densities of different urban land types across different spatial scales. Sensitivity analyses indicated that future environmental changes and landscape modifications could have strong and complex effects on urban ecosystem functions. By matching ecological processes, anthropogenic environmental controls, and land and socioeconomic dynamics based on hierarchical levels, HPM-UEM could be coupled to multiple-scaled urban land-use models, climate models, and socioeconomic models to gain a comprehensive understanding of urban biogeochemical cycles.

The changing urban landscape of the continental United States

The hallmark of development in the United States has been sprawling urbanisation. However, most of the analyses about urbanisation have focused on specific regions or metropolitan areas. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the changing urban landscape patterns between 2001 and 2006. Using the land cover data from the US Geological Survey for these 2 years, I characterise the landscape metrics for each county in the continental United States. The changes in these metrics are correlated with the drivers of urbanisation including socioeconomic variables. Uneven and heterogeneous patterns of growth in a country this large are not surprising. However, the metrics reveal that while urban counties are becoming less fragmented, some rural counties in the Southern and Western United States are experiencing significant leapfrog development.

Spatio-temporal variation of landscape heterogeneity under influence of human activities in Xiamen City of China in recent decade

Xiamen is an economically competitive and highly urbanized city along the coastal area of Fujian Province, China. The research on spatio-temporal variation of landscape heterogeneity under the influence of human activities is of great importance to the further study on the relationship of landscape pattern and ecological process. It is also crucial to the discovery of spatial variation and intensity distribution of human activities. The research analyzed the intensity of human impacts and the spatial variation features and dynamics of landscape patterns by introducing statistical theories and approaches. We analyzed spatio-temporal variation of landscape heterogeneity using the geostatistical techniques, such as semivariogram and Kriging interpolation. Results show that there is a higher correlation between landscape heterogeneity indexes and human impact index. Both the indexes show a moderate spatial autocorrelation as well as an obvious characteristic of anisotropy. From 1998 to 2008, the spatial differentiation of the changes in the intensity of human activities and the changes in landscape heterogeneity shows that the landscape patterns in Xiamen are closely related with the urban land utilization methods, the condition of traffic and geographical location and the physical geographical condition such as the terrain and the ecological environment. The process of urbanization has a significant impact on the urban landscape pattern.

Landscape Pattern Dynamics and Landscape Sustainability in Shenzhen City

urbanization, land use, landscape pattern, landscape sustainability, Shenzhen Abstract. Urbanization has been a universal and irresistible trend across the world. Quantifying urban landscape pattern changes can provide detailed information to understand the urbanization process and to operationalize landscape sustainability. Combining the remotely sensed images and landscape metrics, we analyze the land use structure and landscape dynamics in a typical region of rapid urbanization in China—Shenzhen during the period of 1980-2010. The results showed that the dominant semi-natural and agricultural landscape has been fundamentally converted into the human-induced landscape. At the landscape level, the signatures of landscape dynamics exhibited a coalescence-diffusion-coalescence pattern. At the class level, the degree of fragmentation and shape complexity of four main land use types substantially increased.

Assessment of land surface temperature in relation to landscape metrics and fractional vegetation cover in an urban/peri-urban region using Landsat data

Land surface temperature (LST) is essentially considered to be one of the most important indicators used for assessment of the urban thermal environment. It is quite evident that land-use/land-cover (LULC) and landscape patterns have ecological implications at varying spatial scales, which in turn influence the distribution of habitat and material/energy fluxes in the landscape. This article attempts to quantitatively analyse the complex interrelationships between urban LST and LULC landscape patterns with the purpose of elucidating their relation to landscape processes. The study employed an integrated approach involving remote-sensing, geographic information system (GIS), and landscape ecology techniques on bi-temporal Landsat Thematic Mapper images of Southwestern Sydney metropolitan region and the surrounding fringe, taken at approximately the same time of the year in July 1993 and July 2006. First, the LULC categories and LST were extracted from the bi-temporal images. The LST distribution and changes and LST of the LULC categories were then quantitatively analysed using landscape metrics and LST zones. The results show that large differences in temperature existed in even a single LULC category, except for variations between different LULC categories. In each LST zone, the regressive function of LST with fractional vegetation cover (FVC) indicated a significant relationship between LST and FVC. Landscape metrics of LULC categories in each zone in relation to the other zones showed changing patterns between 1993 and 2006. This study also illustrates that a method integrating retrieval of LST and FVC from remote-sensing images combined with landscape metrics provides a novel and feasible way to describe the spatial distribution and temporal variation in urban thermal patterns and associated LULC conditions in a quantitative manner.

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF URBAN EXPANSION IN CENTRAL CHINA

Abstract. Quantifying urban expansion forms is important to understanding regional urbanization processes and urban planning. For this purpose, conventional landscape indices are commonly used for quantitative analysis of urban landscape patterns. However, these landscape indices only reflect information for one particular temporal phase of landscape patterns. This paper studies and quantifies the dynamic changes of urban landscape from 1993 to 2006 in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan metropolitan areas in Hunan province of China using landscape expansion index (LEI), which contains information of the formation processes of landscape patterns. The results indicate that there are three types of urban expansions: infilling, edge-expansion and outlying in the study area. The change of proportion of the three urban expansion types reveals that urban expansion patterns have changed from a messy, dispersed early development phase to more compact and reasonable layout from 1993 to 2006. Moreover, the urban expansion modes varied in different periods. From 1993 to 1996, the edge-expansion and outlying were the main types of urban expansion forms, indicating an early stage of rapid urban developments. Comparing with the edge-expansion, the outlying expansion increased rapidly in this period, which indicates urban development is messy and dispersion. Overall, the edge-expansion was the major type of urban expansion form during the study period with outlying as the second and rapidly-increasing major form of expansion prior to 1998, which indicates urbanization is in the early stage of rapid urban developments, and infilling as the second and rapidly-increasing major form of expansion after 1998.

Evolution of Urban Landscape Pattern in Suzhou City during 1987-2009

The urban landscape pattern evolution and driving forces in SuZhou City in the past two decades were explored based on the landscape ecology theory and the ENVI 4.7 & Fragstats 3.3 technology, using the multi-source interpreted data of Landsat TM images in 1987,2005 and 2009, and Landsat ETM+ image in 2000. The indices chosen are the urban landscape overall constitution, average patch area, patch number, patch density, fractal dimension, contagion index, isolation index, fragment index, landscape diversity and evenness index. Taking the remote sensing as a platform to integrate and analyze the data, the driving forces are summarized together with the development of SuZhou City. This will supply the theory foundation and scientific basis for the land resources of reasonable planning and using, management, sustainable utilization, and the landscape pattern optimization configuration in SuZhou City. The results show that, the landscape pattern in Suzhou City changed greatly from 1987 to 2009. The construction land area increased, while the cultivated land, wood land and water body area decreased. The urban landscape contagion index and landscape fractal dimension were all increased, while the urban landscape diversity and evenness index were all decreased. The isolation index and fragment index of the construction land and cultivated land were small, this shows that the landscape pattern changed mainly by human factors. The population and economy growth together with industrialization and urbanization were main forces for the urban landscape pattern evolution in SuZhou City. The results can provide scientific evidence for ecological landscape design and urban development planning in other regions.