Urbanization In Shanghai Research Articles

New-type urbanization efficiency measurement in Shanghai under the background of industry city integration.

With the development of urbanization, the problem of the disintegrated between industry and city became more prominent, exploring the reasons. The efficiency of new-type industry has been the crucial factor in city-industry integration. This paper constructs the measurement index system of new-type urbanization via DEA-BCC methodology, starting from the quality of urbanization to analyze the efficiency of urbanization. This paper chooses the total energy consumption, general public budget expenditure, and the proportion of employment personnel in the tertiary industry in all urban units as input variables. The total retail sales of consumer goods, urbanization rate, average annual concentration of pm2.5 (popW), and built-up area as output variables. This paper uses DEA method to measure the comprehensive efficiency value, technical efficiency value, and scale efficiency value of new urbanization in Shanghai, and analyzes the influencing factors of urbanization efficiency. The results show the following: (1) The overall level of comprehensive efficiency value, technical efficiency value, and scale efficiency of Shanghai's new-type urbanization are relatively high, especially the technical efficiency basically stays at a high level. The overall trend of scale efficiency and comprehensive efficiency is consistent, and the comprehensive efficiency is greatly influenced by scale efficiency. (2) The technical efficiency of urbanization in Shanghai is close to the optimal, and there is little space for further increasing technological input to improve the comprehensive efficiency of new-type urbanization. The scale efficiency is slightly lower than the technical efficiency, and there is still some space for optimization. (3) In terms of urbanization input indicators, Shanghai's total energy consumption and general public budget input were too much in the early years, which led to the reduction of urbanization efficiency, and the situation has been improved in recent years. In terms of the output index of urbanization, increasing the total retail sales of social consumer goods and the output of built-up area can make the urbanization efficiency of Shanghai reach the optimal efficiency.

Assessing the Long-Term Hydrological Effects of Rapid Urbanization in Metropolitan Shanghai, China: The Finer the Landscape Classification, the More Accurate the Modeling?

Rapid urbanization often leads to increase in surface runoff; its modelling is always the focus in the field of land use effect. One of the methodological issues is how to classify the landscape (land use/land cover) in the model. In this study, the long-term hydrological impact assessment (L-THIA) model was used to simulate the change of annual surface runoff during the rapid urbanization in Shanghai since 1965. Two landscape scenarios, based upon land uses and pervious/impervious surfaces, were compared, and the CN values were adjusted to validate the applicability of the two landscape scenarios. The results showed that there was almost no difference between the results based on the two landscape scenarios, and it was suggested that the simplified landscape scenario based upon pervious/impervious surfaces can be workable and efficient, while the land use scenario may not be necessary for the modelling considering its scale of interpretation of remote sensing data. It was found that there was a clear linear relationship between the percentage of impervious surfaces and surface runoff. For every 1% increase in impervious surface, runoff increased by 0.94%. In addition, the effect of precipitation on the modelling was also discussed, which indicated that with the increase in impervious surface percentage, the response of runoff change in both dry year and dry season was more sensitive.

A Visual Misalignment of Modernity. Documentary Photography of Contemporary Urban Transformation in Shanghai

The built environment of contemporary Shanghai has accumulated relatively continuous historical fragments, providing a unique, complete and diachronic sample of urban transformation for documentary photography. As an objective and material fact, how the transformation has become a subjective and cultural fact that was visualized by photography remains a significant issue. 
 A series of art movements in China since 1976 thrived the individual’s expression, artistic or documentary, by photography. Before long, the unprecedented and nationwide urbanization realizing the comprehensive modernization after the Reform and Opening up Policy in 1978 has far surpassed the construction of the past. During the urbanization in Shanghai, architectural spectacles and highly mixed urban development has emerged, meanwhile, the historical trace of everyday life has inevitably either vanished or transformed. It is a significant interaction between the material transformation pursuing the Chinese subjective modernity by codifying “Plans” to realize the comprehensive modernization and the visualization of the specific spatial impact that reconstructed everyday life underlying the overall transformation. 
 Concentrating on three representative and sequential photographers whose long-term documentation illustrated the urban transformation in contemporary Shanghai: Guo Bo acted as a professional architect and a photographer as well who depicted the everyday life in vanishing residential lanes “Lilong” after the Reform; Lu Yuanmin delved into the street and gleaned the surreal micro-reactions during the transformation; And Xi Zi applied his lens to produce an urban specimen of the remaining existence of the crumbling residential housing amongst new developing areas, this paper discusses how the visual misalignment as a distinct feature and approach of the recognition of the urban transformation was revealed by documentary photography.
 Although focusing on different motifs, their representations with self-consciousness as an intertextuality of urban transformation demonstrated a common sense that brought the overall transformation as a material fact of the comprehensive modernization in Shanghai back to everyday experience as a cultural fact. The coherence and distance, the intimacy and indifference, the familiarity and strangeness in the documentation endeavor sensitively to represent the visual experience of modernity in everyday life which reveals a phenomenon of misalignment in visual culture of the urban transformation in Shanghai.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Urban Green Space Influenced by Rapid Urbanization and Land Use Policies in Shanghai

Urbanization has led to the continuous expansion of built-up areas and the ever-growing urban population, threatening the quantity and quality of urban green space (UGS). Exploring the spatiotemporal variations of UGS is substantially conducive to the formulation of land-use policies to protect the ecosystems. As one of the largest megacities all around the world, Shanghai has experienced rapid urbanization in the past three decades. Insights into how UGS changes in response to urbanization and greening policies are essential for guiding sustainable urban development. This paper employed integrated approaches to characterize the changing patterns and intensities of green space in Shanghai, China from 1990 to 2015. The spatiotemporal dynamics of the UGS pattern were derived through four main methods: green space ratio, dynamic change degree (DCD), transition matrix and landscape metrics. The results showed that Shanghai’s green space decreased from 84.8% in 1990 to 61.9% in 2015 while the built-up areas increased from 15.0% to 36.5%. Among the green space sub-types, farmland was largely encroached and fragmented by urban sprawl, especially in the Outer Ring Expressway and Suburban Ring Expressway belts of the city. About 1522 km2 of the green space has transferred into built-up areas, followed by farmland, waterbody, forest, and grassland in descending order. The 2000–2010 period witnessed the strong urban expansion and dramatic changes in UGS, but then the change around 2015 turned down and stable. The landscape pattern metrics showed that the entire green space in Shanghai was growingly fragmented and isolated during the past 25 years. Combined with the green space-related planning and policies issued in 1990–2015, the results revealed that both rapid urbanization and greening policies accounted for the spatiotemporal dynamics of UGS. Based on the results, some implicants to new urban planning and policies of Shanghai were highlighted.

Construction of an intelligent cellular automata model for historic landscape islands in Shanghai and fusion simulation

SummaryHistoric landscape islands are a unique landscape phenomenon in the urbanization and modernization process in Shanghai. Shanghai has been fragmented and isolated at the landscape space level because of islanding, and its historic and cultural values have been broken and weakened. Therefore, it is urgent to implement fusion protection planning. Considering the islanding of urban historic landscape, cellular automata (CA) and neural network intelligent method were used to establish the intelligent CA model of Shanghai historic landscape islands and carry out computer simulation, expecting to provide a basis for studying urban historic landscapes in China via the intelligent evaluation of urban historic landscape islands and the establishment of an intelligent planning model. A technical path to alleviate landscape fragmentation and cultural value fracture of isolated islands was explored, so as to provide the latest theoretical basis for decision makers to manage historic landscape islands in Shanghai and offer reference for more scientific, intelligent, and efficient decision‐making.

Observed decrease of summer sea-land breeze in Shanghai from 1994 to 2014 and its association with urbanization

Sea-land breeze (SLB) is widely known as a common wind circulation in coastal cities, which plays an important role to heat transport and pollution diffusion. Using 21-year observation data, a continuous decrease of SLB is discovered in a Chinese metropolis city - Shanghai. In general, the thermodynamic difference between sea and land accounts for the magnitude of SLB. However, other factors associated with urbanization could also affect the SLB significantly, such as anthropogenic aerosol loading, surface roughness, heat release, and so on. This study statistically analyzes the influence of these factors on SLB under the background of global warming. As expected, the decrease of SLB is a combined effect of global warming and great urbanization in Shanghai. The latter, which affects the circulation in both thermodynamic and dynamic ways, is consisted of three parts: temperature increase with urbanization, change of atmospheric radiative forcing, and variation of the underlying surface. At night, the urbanization effect and global warming effect play the similar role by decreasing the temperature gap between sea and land, which would cause the decrease of land wind. At day, decreasing downwelling solar radiation partially offsets the temperature increase caused by both global warming and urbanization although the increasing trend of temperature remains. Different from the expected increasing trend of sea breeze based on the increasing temperature in Shanghai, sea breeze demonstrates a decreasing trend, which could be caused by the dynamic effect from increased surface roughness in Shanghai along with the cooling contribution from radiation-influential factors such as anthropogenic aerosols.

Historical Trends of Atmospheric Pb and Hg Emissions from Fossil Fuel Combustion in Shanghai

Rapid urbanization in Shanghai over the past century has led to increased resource and energy consumption, in turn leading to the release of significant amounts of toxic pollutants into the urban environment. In order to investigate historical variations in atmospheric metal emissions from typical combustion sources in Shanghai, historical emissions of Pb and Hg from coal-fired sectors (coal-fired power plant, industrial sector, and domestic use) and vehicle exhaust in Shanghai during the period 1949-2015 were estimated, based on consumption of fossil fuels (coal and gasoline) and emission factors. Results showed that Pb and Hg emissions exhibited rapidly fluctuating increases from 1949 to the 1980s or 1990s, before beginning to decrease sharply due to various pollution control measures. Hg emissions from coal-fired sources played a dominant role during the 1980-2015 period, contributing a high proportion (87.5%-99.7%) to the total. The dominant sources of atmospheric Pb emissions have experienced historical variations. Coal-fired emissions became the major contributor (78.2%-83.5% of total) following omission of leaded gasoline from the Shanghai market since 1997. However, the rapid increase of gasoline consumption since 2005 has led to gasoline-fired emissions again becoming the main contributor (55.5%-79.1%).

Temporal Evolution and Influencing Factors of Energy Consumption and Related Carbon Emissions from the Perspective of Industrialization and Urbanization in Shanghai, China

Improvements of manufacturability and living standard driven by industrialization and urbanization typically cause a spike in total energy consumption (TEC) and related carbon emissions (TCEM). However, there have been few comparative studies to include industrial and residential energy consumption (IEC and REC, respectively) and related carbon emissions (ICEM and RCEM, respectively). Since China is a major emerging industrial country wherein urbanization is still ongoing, the present study was conducted in an attempt to analyze the temporal evolution of China’s continued energy consumption and related carbon emissions regarding both industrialization and urbanization. The influencing factors of TCEM, RCEM and ICEM are determined via the log-mean divisia index (LMDI) model. The results showed that both TEC and TCEM gradually increased (apart from a slight decrease in 2014); REC and RCEM increased steadily with no sharp peak; while IEC and ICEM declined sharply. TCEM was positively affected by economic output, consumption level, and population size; the influence of consumption level became more and more significant. Per capita GDP and per capita expenditure were the most significant driving factors for RCEM, while industrial added value (IAV) was the main driving factor for ICEM. The temporal evolution and influencing factors of energy consumption and carbon emissions had stage-related characteristics in accordance with Shanghai’s three stages of development. The Shanghai case study provided a comprehensive understanding of energy consumption and related carbon emissions from the dual perspective of industrialization and urbanization.

Two-Dimensional Ground Deformation Monitoring in Shanghai Based on SBAS and MSBAS InSAR Methods

Shanghai has experienced the greatest land subsidence in China in the past sixty years and produced undesirable environmental impact. However, horizontal ground deformation has not been understood yet. Therefore ground deformation monitoring together with the analysis of its driving forces are critical for geo-hazards early-warning, city planning and sustainable urbanization in Shanghai. In this paper, two-dimensional ground deformation monitoring was performed in Shanghai with SBAS and MSBAS InSAR methods. Twenty-nine Multi-Look Fine 6 (MF6) Radar-sat-2 SLC data acquired during 2011-2013 were used to derive vertical ground deformation. Meanwhile, six descending Multi-Look Fine 6 (MF6) and four ascending Multi-Look Fine 2 (MF2) spanning April to August, 2008, were used to derive vertical and horizontal ground deformation during the observation period. The results indicate that vertical and horizontal deformations in 2008 were not homogeneously distributed in different districts ranging from 0-2 cm/year. Vertical de-formation rate during 2011-2013 were decreased to less than 1 cm/year in most district of Shanghai area. Activities from groundwater exploitation and rapid urbanization are responsible for most of the ground deformation in Shanghai. Thus, future ground deformation in vertical and horizontal directions should be warranted.

Modeling and evaluating spatial variation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in urban lake surface sediments in Shanghai.

To explore the influence of rapid urbanization development on the accumulation of 16 priority PAHs in urban environment, thirty-three surface sediments from city lakes in different urbanized areas of Shanghai were collected to evaluate the occurrence characteristic and source apportionment of PAHs. The concentrations of Σ16PAHs in lake surface sediments ranged from 55.7 to 4928 ng g-1 with a mean value of 1131 ng g-1 (standard deviation, 1228 ng g-1), of which 4-, 5- and 6-ring PAHs were the dominant components. Spatial distribution of PAHs in lake surface sediments showed a significantly declining trend along with a decreasing urbanization gradient (one-way ANOVA, p < .05). Two hotspots of sediment PAHs were mainly distributed at highly urbanized areas with intensive population density and heavy traffic activities and at burgeoning industrial towns in the suburb. Source apportionment of total PAHs identified by a constrained positive matrix factorization model revealed that vehicle emission and combustion of coal, biomass and natural gas were the absolutely predominant sources, respectively accounting for 55.0% and 40.45% of total PAHs burden in lake sediments. Land use regression (LUR) models were successfully developed to evaluate spatial variation of PAHs contamination in urban sediments based on their significant correlations with residential land, commercial land, traffic variables, industrial sources, and population density. All PAH compounds showed strong associations with one or two source indicators (the traffic congestion index and the number of industrial sources), with the fitting R2 varying from 0.529 to 0.984. Our findings suggest that energy consumption related to land use activities obviously promoted PAH accumulations in urban sediment environment during rapid development of urbanization and industrialization in Shanghai.

A Satellite-Derived Climatological Analysis of Urban Heat Island over Shanghai during 2000–2013

The urban heat island is generally conducted based on ground observations of air temperature and remotely sensing of land surface temperature (LST). Satellite remotely sensed LST has the advantages of global coverage and consistent periodicity, which overcomes the weakness of ground observations related to sparse distributions and costs. For human related studies and urban climatology, canopy layer urban heat island (CUHI) based on air temperatures is extremely important. This study has employed remote sensing methodology to produce monthly CUHI climatology maps during the period 2000–2013, revealing the spatiotemporal characteristics of daytime and nighttime CUHI during this period of rapid urbanization in Shanghai. Using stepwise linear regression, daytime and nighttime air temperatures at the four overpass times of Terra/Aqua were estimated based on time series of Terra/Aqua-MODIS LST and other auxiliary variables including enhanced vegetation index, normalized difference water index, solar zenith angle and distance to coast. The validation results indicate that the models produced an accuracy of 1.6–2.6 °C RMSE for the four overpass times of Terra/Aqua. The models based on Terra LST showed higher accuracy than those based on Aqua LST, and nighttime air temperature estimation had higher accuracy than daytime. The seasonal analysis shows daytime CUHI is strongest in summer and weakest in winter, while nighttime CUHI is weakest in summer and strongest in autumn. The annual mean daytime CUHI during 2000–2013 is 1.0 and 2.2 °C for Terra and Aqua overpass, respectively. The annual mean nighttime CUHI is about 1.0 °C for both Terra and Aqua overpass. The resultant CUHI climatology maps provide a spatiotemporal quantification of CUHI with emphasis on temperature gradients. This study has provided information of relevance to urban planners and environmental managers for assessing and monitoring urban thermal environments which are constantly being altered by natural and anthropogenic influences.

The long-term variation of extreme heavy precipitation and its link to urbanization effects in Shanghai during 1916–2014

Using the hourly precipitation records of meteorological stations in Shanghai, covering a period of almost a century (1916–2014), the long-term variation of extreme heavy precipitation in Shanghai on multiple spatial and temporal scales is analyzed, and the effects of urbanization on hourly rainstorms studied. Results show that: (1) Over the last century, extreme hourly precipitation events enhanced significantly. During the recent urbanization period from 1981 to 2014, the frequency of heavy precipitation increased significantly, with a distinct localized and abrupt characteristic. (2) The spatial distribution of long-term trends for the occurrence frequency and total precipitation intensity of hourly heavy precipitation in Shanghai shows a distinct urban rain-island feature; namely, heavy precipitation was increasingly focused in urban and suburban areas. Attribution analysis shows that urbanization in Shanghai contributed greatly to the increase in both frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events in the city, thus leading to an increasing total precipitation amount of heavy rainfall events. In addition, the diurnal variation of rainfall intensity also shows distinctive urban-rural differences, especially during late afternoon and early nighttime in the city area. (3) Regional warming, with subsequent enhancement of water vapor content, convergence of moisture flux and atmospheric instability, provided favorable physical backgrounds for the formation of extreme precipitation. This accounts for the consistent increase in hourly heavy precipitation over the whole Shanghai area during recent times.

Analysis of Factors in Land Subsidence in Shanghai: A View Based on a Strategic Environmental Assessment

It has been observed that in the urban center of Shanghai, land subsidence has accelerated, and the groundwater level has continued to drop even though the net withdrawn volume (NWV) of groundwater has remained unchanged since 1980. An analysis of monitoring data shows that drawdown of the groundwater level is one of the factors that have influenced land subsidence since 1980. The NWV of groundwater in urban areas, however, is not the critical factor controlling the drawdown of the groundwater level. Since the 1980s, there have been many underground works constructed in the unique strata of Shanghai, which has an interlayered structure known as a multi-aquifer-aquitard system (MAAS). Investigation into land subsidence caused by urban construction is now receiving much attention. Based on the principle of a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) for sustainable urban development, this paper presents a discussion and analysis of the factors which can influence the development of land subsidence during continued urbanization in Shanghai. The main factors include the additional loading caused by the construction of structures, the cut-off effect due to construction in aquifers, the drawdown of groundwater level caused by leakage into underground structures, and the decrease of groundwater recharge from neighboring zones. SEA is recommended for the future development of Shanghai.

Effect of a cement-lignin agent on the shear behavior of Shanghai dredged marine soils

ABSTRACTWith the rapid urbanization in Shanghai, China, suitable fill materials have been reported to be in great shortage in recent years. A prospective solution to these issues is to convert the huge amount of existing dredged marine soils to construction materials via solidification. However, there have been no studies on the shear behavior of solidified dredged materials from Shanghai region so far, while it has been reported by various researchers that the available data obtained from certain types of clay cannot be confidently and readily applied to other types of soils. To address this challenging issue, in this article, samples of Shanghai marine dredged soils were retrieved from the world’s largest reclamation project in Shanghai Lin-gang New City. A series of laboratory tests have been conducted to investigate the shear behavior of Shanghai dredged marine soils solidified using a new composite curing agent made of cement and lignin. The test results and the effect of this cement–lignin agent on the shear behavior of Shanghai marine soils, including the stress–strain behavior, shear strength properties, and failure characteristics are presented and discussed, which can provide valuable reference for the use of dredged soils as construction materials in the Shanghai region.

Quantifying the coordinated degree of urbanization in Shanghai, China

Urbanization involves an array of coupling interactive processes. Consequently, its coordinated development consequently relies on the synchronous advancement of these involved processes. However, seldom studies have quantified the coordinated degree of urbanization by analyzing the coupling interactive relationships among the involved processes. This study assessed the coordinated degree of urbanization by quantifying four involved processes (demographic, social, economic and spatial) in Shanghai City (China) from 1952 to 2012. Results showed that demographic urbanization did not advance discontinuously and roughly presented a U-shaped trend. The social and economic urbanization progressed slowly before 1980 and then accelerated rapidly. The spatial urbanization kept an increasing trend through the 60 years. These four processes interacted with each other with a low coupling degree, and led to the uncoordinated development of urbanization in Shanghai. Specifically, the coupling coordination degree of urbanization increased between 1970 and 2000, but slowed down after the 2000s. To achieve coordinated urbanization development, the social urbanization should be given priorities. This study demonstrated an applicable framework to quantify the coordinated degree of urbanization using the quality and quantity data.

Mercury distribution in sediment along urban–rural gradient around Shanghai (China): implication for pollution history

The increasing levels of heavy metals in the environment generally related with the rapid industrialization and urbanization. Mercury (Hg) is a global toxin with wide concerns, and China gradually becomes the main producer, consumer, and emitter of Hg in the world. However, few historical data are available on the occurrence of Hg in Chinese urban areas. Here, we collected 35 lake surface sediment samples from 35 public parks and 1 sediment core in the Luxun Park in Shanghai, a hyper-urbanization city in China, to determine the spatial and vertical distributions of total mercury (THg) and methylmercury (MeHg) and to explore the Hg pollution history with the industrial development. Higher concentrations of Hg and MeHg and greater Hg enrichment were found in urban areas compared with suburban area with the following order: central urban core area > developed urban area > developing urban area > suburban area. The THg concentration in the sediment core showed an increasing trend from 1876 to 2000 and a decreasing trend from 2000 to 2012, coinciding with the process of industrialization and urbanization in Shanghai. However, THg fluxes unceasingly increased from 1876 to present probably attributed to coal consumption in the suburban area and transportation agglomeration in the central urban core area. Unlike THg, no significant variations for MeHg with time and the maximum value (0.17 μg/kg) appeared in 1947. The methylation ratio of MeHg to THg in the sediment is pretty low, and more studies are needed to further understand the fate of Hg in the environment.

Spatially non-stationary response of ecosystem service value changes to urbanization in Shanghai, China

General declines in ecosystem service values (ESV) are acknowledged worldwide; however, rather few studies have used quantitative measurement to describe the relationship between urbanization and ESV. This paper characterized ESV changes and their relationships with urbanization in Shanghai peri-urban area (China), using the proxy based approach and geographically weighted regression (GWR). Results showed that between 1994 and 2006 total ESV decreased from 4718.1 to 3263.6 million RMB Yuan, with a net decline of 30.8%. Significant spatial autocorrelation was identified for the patterns of ESV changes. Adjacent districts exhibited similar trend of ESV changes. GWR signified that response of ESV changes to urbanization was spatially non-stationary. The obtained relationships presented identical nature but different strength in space. ESV changes were negatively correlated with urbanization indicators, suggesting that ESV would decline with economic increase and population growth. Districts with high proximity to central city and those located in the western area would experience higher rates of ESV declines as urbanization intensified. Our results demonstrated that GWR was superior to global regression in explaining relationship between ESV changes and urbanization.

Recent trends in wastewater flow and pollutant load resulting from urbanization in Shanghai.

To better control water pollution and to manage water resources, we used input-output analysis to examine structural changes in wastewater flows and pollutant loads following changes in socioeconomic activities in Shanghai. We found that the industrial structure has changed considerably and that total direct emission loads exhibited a decreasing trend between 1997 and 2007. Emission loads from secondary industries, especially from paper manufacturing, have decreased. However, wastewater from primary industries remained constant while wastewater from tertiary industries and domestic sources increased, acting as the largest sources of emission loads since 2002. Wastewater and pollutant loads from household consumption, including indirect sources from food manufacturing, clothing, and transportation, had an especially large influence on emission loads in 2007. These emissions were primarily generated through primary industries and food manufacturing sectors. With continued urbanization, wastewater and pollutants generated by household consumption should be factored into the control of water pollution in Shanghai.

Time-series analysis of subsidence associated with rapid urbanization in Shanghai, China measured with SBAS InSAR method

River delta plains (deltas) are susceptible to subsidence producing undesirable environmental impact and affecting dense population. The City of Shanghai, located in the easternmost of Yangtze Delta in China, is one of the most developed regions in China that experiences the greatest land subsidence. Excessive groundwater withdrawal is thought to be the primary cause of the land subsidence, but rapid urbanization and economic development, mass construction of skyscrapers, metro lines and highways are also contributing factors. In this paper, a spatial–temporal analysis of the land subsidence in Shanghai was performed with the help of the Small Baseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar. Twenty l-band ALOS PALSAR images acquired during 2007–2010 were used to produce a linear deformation rate map and to derive time series of ground deformation. The results show homogeneous subsidence within the research area, but exceptionally rapid subsidence around skyscrapers, along metro lines, elevated roads and highways was also observed. Because groundwater exploitation and rapid urbanization responsible for much of the subsidence in the Shanghai region are expected to continue, future subsidence monitoring is warranted.

Spatiotemporal pattern of urbanization in Shanghai, China between 1989 and 2005

Quantifying the spatiotemporal pattern of urbanization is necessary to understand urban morphology and its impacts on biodiversity and ecological processes, and thus can provide essential information for improving landscape and urban planning. Recent studies have suggested that, as cities evolve, certain general patterns emerge along the urban–rural gradient although individual cities always differ in details. To help better understand these generalities and idiosyncrasies in urbanization patterns, we analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of the Shanghai metropolitan area from 1989 to 2005, based on landscape metrics and remote sensing data. Specifically, the main objectives of our study were to quantitatively characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of urbanization in Shanghai in recent decades, identify possible spatial signatures of different land use types, and test the diffusion coalescence hypotheses of urban growth. We found that, similar to numerous cities around the world reported in previous studies, urbanization increased the diversity, fragmentation, and configurational complexity of the urban landscape of Shanghai. In the same time, however, the urban–rural patterns of several land use types in Shanghai seem unique—quite different from previously reported patterns. For most land use types, each showed a distinctive spatial pattern along a rural–urban transect, as indicated by landscape metrics. Furthermore, the urban expansion of Shanghai exhibited an outward wave-like pattern. Our results suggest that the urbanization of Shanghai followed a complex diffusion–coalescence pattern along the rural–urban transect and in time.