Climate change will constrain the rapid urban expansion in drylands: A scenario analysis with the zoned Land Use Scenario Dynamics-urban model

Evaluation of climate change impacts (CCIs) on urban expansion is important to improving the urban sustainabilty in drylands. Taking the agro-pastoral transitional zone of northern China (APTZNC) as an example, this study evaluates potential CCIs on urban expansion in 2015-2050. First, we set up six climate change scenarios (CCSs) based on the simulated results of global climate model and regional dimate model under different representative concentration pathways. Then, we simulate regional urban expansion under the different CCSs using the zoned Land Use Scenario Dynamics-urban (LUSD-urban) model. We find that climate change will be a key factor that affects urban expansion in this region. The urban land affected by climate change in the entire region will increase from 2024-26.48 km(2) (2020) to 119.71-339.26 km(2) (2050), an increase of 4.91-11.81 times. The CCIs on urban expansion will be the most significant in the mid-western region. In 2050, the urban land potentially affected by climate change will be 98.70-213.88 km(2), which is 4226%-134.12% of the urban land in the entire region. To improve urban sustainability in the APTZNC, effective measures must be adopted to mitigate and adapt to CCIs on urban expansion. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.