Spatially non-stationary relationships between urbanization and the characteristics and storage-regulation capacities of river systems in the Tai Lake Plain, China

Given environmental or hydrological functions influenced by changing river networks in the development of rapid urbanization, a clear understanding of the relationships between comprehensive urbanization (CUB) and river network characteristics (RNC), storage capacity (RSC), and regulation capacity (RRC) is urgently needed. In the rapidly urbanized Tai Lake Plain (TLP), China, various methods and multisource data were integrated to estimate the dynamics of RNC, RSC, and RRC as well as their interactions with urbanization. The bivariate Moran's I methods were applied to detect and visualize the spatial dependency of RNC, RSC, or RRC on urbanization. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) model was set up to characterize spatial heterogeneity of urbanization influences on RNC, RSC and RRC. Our results indicated that RNC, RSC and RRC variables each showed an overall decreasing trend across space from 1960s to 2010s, particularly in those of tributary rivers. RNC, RSC, or RRC had globally negative correlations with CUB, respectively, but looking at local scale the spatial correlations between each pair were categorized as four types: high-high, high-low, low-low, and low-high. GWR was identified to accurately predict the response of most RNC, RSC, or RRC variables to CUB (R-2: 0.6-0.8). The predictive ability of GWR was spatially non-stationary. The obtained relationships presented different directions and strength in space. All variables except for the water surface ratio (Wp) were more positively affected by CUB in the middle eastern parts of TLP. Drainage density, RSC and RRC variables were more negatively influenced by CUB in the northeast compared to other parts. The quantitative results of spatial relationships between urbanization and RNC, RSC or RRC can provide location-specific guidance for river environment protection and regional flood risk management.

Automated summary

In the rapidly urbanized Tai Lake Plain, the river network characteristics, storage capacity, and regulation capacity showed an overall decreasing trend across space and had globally negative correlations with comprehensive urbanization. However, there were different types of spatial correlations at the local scale.