Spatiotemporal dynamic simulation of land-use and landscape-pattern in the Pearl River Delta, China

Land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) is directly related to human activities. Simulating the process of LUCC and predicting the future changes are important. The system dynamics (SD) model, grey prediction (GM) model and Markov model were applied to the simulation. From 1985-2015, the cropland decreased by 20.83% in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and construction land increased by 173.61%. The SD model obtained an optimal result. The simulation processes revealed that social and economic factors have a great impact on LUCC processes. The SD model is an optimal quantitative model when combined with the cellular automata (CA) model to simulate spatial dynamics of LUCC (kappa index = 0.94 in 2015). Three scenarios were used and related to rapid development, coordinated development, and conservation. A good development scenario with lower fragmentation and highest connectivity in a landscape in the PRD was achieved under the coordinated development scenario. The SD-CA model has advantages due to its inclusion of many social and policy factors. This study shows that the SD-CA model under the coordinated development scenario provides the best result for the PRD.