Journal
SUSTAINABILITY
Volume 6, Issue 8, Pages 4723-4748Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/su6084723
Keywords
urban land; spatio-temporal pattern; driving forces; policy implications; Wuhan urban agglomeration
Funding
- Major Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China [11ZD042]
- Excellent Team Construction Foundation of Beijing City [2008-411-30]
- Science and Technology Project of Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of China [2013-R2-25]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Relatively little attention has been paid to examining the spatial expansion features of cities at various tiers at the regional level in China, especially those located in central and western regions of the country. Based on Landsat satellite imagery from four years-1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010, this paper investigates the spatio-temporal pattern of urban land expansion and its influencing factors in the Wuhan Urban Agglomeration (WUA) in central China. The research found that the total area of urban land expanded from 203.66 km(2) in 1980 to 1370.07 km(2) in 2010, and that urban land areas increased by 423.82, 167.42, and 574.93 km(2) in the periods 1980-1990, 1990-2000, and 2000-2010 respectively, exhibiting significant fluctuation between the different periods studied. Geographically, this spatial expansion pattern was characterised by conspicuous concentrations and regional imbalances across the overall study period. Whilst these spatio-temporal differences were found to be closely related to industrialisation, urban population growth, land-use policies, urbanisation guidelines (governmental plans and regulations addressing urbanisation), and national development strategy, the dominant mechanisms driving those differences varied over time. In response, the paper presents an urban-rural and regional integration strategy, with the aim of avoiding economic gaps and the inefficient utilisation of various resources in the urban agglomeration areas.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available