The influencing factors of urban land expansion in Changsha

This research systematically analyses land-use map of Changsha city in different periods of time. The spatial form and structural evolution was analysed by studying indices such as city land-use structure proportion, expansion intensity, economic flexibility, population flexibility, changing compactness index and so on. The dynamic mechanism of urban land expansion has been discussed by integrating the regional social economy development situation and many aspects such as the physiographical surrounding, population and economic development, traffic infrastructure, planning and regional development tactic and system innovation. The research indicates that the urban land expansion speed and intensity have steadily increased in Changsha from 1949 to 2004. The expansion form has been from a single external expansion to a combination form of external and internal expansion, from a circular or linear continuous form to a blocky or agglomeration shape. Overall, the urban land expansion of Changsha city is a phasic, diversified and complex process. And no matter what the stage is, it is an organic system containing multiple speed, pattern and shape, which are driven by multiple impetuses. The dominant feature at different stages was highlighted because of the balance and fluctuation between different forces, and the existing urban land border and shape have resulted from the joint efforts of these phasic forces.

Expansion of Urban Space and Land Use Control in the Process of Urbanization: an Overview

Urban expansion brought by the rapid progress of urbanization has caused many problems in China. It is a significant issue to evaluate the extent of urban expansion and to make appropriate controls over the sprawl of urban areas. With a comparative study of international experiences, this article analyzed the mechanism and consequences of urban expansion, reviewed the typical planning and financial policies adopted by other countries for controlling urban sprawl, and discussed the suitable densities of urban areas. The analysis results suggested that Chinese cities have no better choice but compact urban forms. To achieve the goal of compact development, intensive use of public transportation and high proportion of collective houses should be encouraged, and 60–100 m2 per capita is recommended as the reasonable range of urban density in large cities.

Analyzing and Pondering on the Regulation of Urban Construction Land Expansion

Along with the economic development and the acceleration of urbanization,urban construction land expands rapidly in China,and has resulted in a series of socio-economic problems.This article summarized the major points of controlling the unchecked and rash expansion of construction land in the academic circle,and analyzed the problems of regulating the expansion of construction land from three aspects.First,this article analyzed the relationships between socio-economic development and urbanization from the historical viewpoints,and pointed out that the expansion of construction land is a historical phenomenon which will be surely appeared in the development of human race.Second,the authors utilized two-sector model to analyze the importance of urbanization in the socio-economic development from the academic angles.At last,the authors utilize four-quadrant model and bidrent curve model to analyze the influence that brought by the strict control of construction land expansion.Through analysis,this article drew some conclusions.First,the expansion of construction land is a phenomenon which will surely appear in the social development.It is impossible to accomplish the national modernization on the basis of dualistic structure between urban and rural areas.Second,under the function of rent gradient gap,strict control of construction land expansion will not only obtain the anticipated effects,but also cause a series of socio-economic problems,such as land-levying contradiction,the appearance of limited property right house,and being dependant on lease instead of expropriation.Third,unreasonable policies and governmental behaviors are the roots of the unchecked and rash expansion of urban construction land.Based on these conclusions,this article proposed that three transformations should be realized to regulate the unchecked and rash expansion of construction land:transfers from quantity regulation to quality regulation,from direct regulation to indirect regulation,and from single-measure regulation to multi-measures regulation.

On the Distributive Justice of Land Added Value in the Process of Urban Expansion

It is an unarguable fact that the urban-rural dual structure led to two different results. On the one hand,it had been playing a great role in the city development and prosperity,and on the other hand,it had led the slow development of rural economy and the income gap between rural and urban areas. The government makes efforts to promote the process of urbanization to maintain the sustained development of China's economy and economic transformation which are the two needs of the Chinese reality. But in the top-level design of the policy,the government did not give a fair profits distribution to all social groups. On the contrary,the result of urban development is based on the expense of a part of the people's interests in exchange for the interests of another parts of the people,and especially on the government expropriation in the process of urban expansion. Under Land Administration Law of the People's Republic of China,the government monopolized the expropriation right of the rural land,and the rural collectives and farmers as the land owner and constructors respectively have no rights to decide the land use purposes. In fact,they are forced to accept the land compensation,and because of the little bargaining rights,they gain little from the land value increment. Comparatively,the governments became the biggest beneficiary who made use of the land as a source and capital to earn the achievement in their official career and more money required by the urban development. The paper mainly analyzes the current situation of the distribution of the land added value,elaborates the reasons why the government strives for the land interests,and discusses what farmers lose in the government expropriation. Last but not lest,the author reflects on the land reform and gives a proposal on distribution of land added value.

Assessment of vegetation cover changes and the contributing factors in the Al-Ahsa Oasis using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI)

The abandonment of date palm grove of the former Al-Ahsa Oasis in the eastern region of Saudi Arabia has resulted in the conversion of delicate agricultural area into urban area.The current state of the oasis is influenced by both expansion and degradation factors.Therefore,it is important to study the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation cover for the sustainable management of oasis resources.This study used Landsat satellite images in 1987,2002,and 2021 to monitor the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation cover in the Al-Ahsa Oasis,applied multi-temporal Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI)data spanning from 1987 to 2021 to assess environmental and spatiotemporal variations that have occurred in the Al-Ahsa Oasis,and investigated the factors influencing these variation.This study reveals that there is a significant improvement in the ecological environment of the oasis during 1987–2021,with increase of NDVI values being higher than 0.10.In 2021,the highest NDVI value is generally above 0.70,while the lowest value remains largely unchanged.However,there is a remarkable increase in NDVI values between 0.20 and 0.30.The area of low NDVI values(0.00–0.20)has remained almost stable,but the region with high NDVI values(above 0.70)expands during 1987–2021.Furthermore,this study finds that in 1987–2002,the increase of vegetation cover is most notable in the northern region of the study area,whereas from 2002 to 2021,the increase of vegetation cover is mainly concentrated in the northern and southern regions of the study area.From 1987 to 2021,NDVI values exhibit the most pronounced variation,with a significant increase in the“green”zone(characterized by NDVI values exceeding 0.40),indicating a substantial enhancement in the ecological environment of the oasis.The NDVI classification is validated through 50 ground validation points in the study area,demonstrating a mean accuracy of 92.00%in the detection of vegetation cover.In general,both the user’s and producer’s accuracies of NDVI classification are extremely high in 1987,2002,and 2021.Finally,this study suggests that environmental authorities should strengthen their overall forestry project arrangements to combat sand encroachment and enhance the ecological environment of the Al-Ahsa Oasis.

Spatio-temporal Evolution of Urban Expansion Based on a Novel Adjusted Index and GEE: A Case Study of Central Plains Urban Agglomeration, China

It is crucial to investigate the urban agglomerations spatio-temporal evolution patterns and driving factors for analyzing the urban spatial structure-functional division and promoting the coordinated development of urban agglomerations.In this study,a novel vegetation-building-nighttime light-adjusted index(VBNAI)was established for rapid and effective mapping of urban construction land(UCL)in Central Plains Urban Agglomeration(CPUA),China during 2000–2020 based on Google Earth Engine(GEE)platform.Compared with traditional indices,VBNAI can significantly decrease the blooming effect,Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI)saturation,and soil background of nighttime light data.In addition,the urban expansion indices and standard deviation ellipse model were synthetically adopted to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution pattern of urban expansion.The gravity model and the geographically weighted regression model were employed to determine the spatial interaction forces and drivers of urban expansion,respectively.The results showed that the VBNAI index has obvious advantages in efficiency and accuracy to extract UCL with the overall accuracy of more than 91%.The UCL of CPUA had increased by 4489.84 km2 during 2000–2020 with the gravity center moving towards southeast continuously.From 2000 to 2010,the urban expansion was in a‘center-hinterland’pattern which had benefit from the favorable effect of the traffic shaft belt.During 2010–2020,the urban network structure had basically established.Urban expansion had been influenced by a variety of socio-economic and demographic factors,and the impact degree varied from region to region.This study could provide scientific references for facilitating the intensive utilization of urban resources and optimizing the spatial development pattern of urban agglomeration.

Modelling urban expansion using a multi agentbased model in the city of Changsha

Although traditional urban expansion simulation models can simulate dynamic features, these models fail to address complex changes produced by different agents＇ behaviors. The paper has built up a set of spatial-temporal land resource allocation rules and developed a dynamic urban expansion model based on a multi-agent system, which can simulate the interaction among different agents, such as residents, peasants, and governments. This model is applied to simulate urban expansion process taking Changsha City, in China as a study area. The results show that this model can not only reflect basic characteristics of urban expansion, but also help explain the reasons for urban expansion process and understand the effect of agents＇ behavior on the expansion process, and provide insights into the causing factors behind the expansion. In addition, in contrast to simulation results with land use classification map from remote sensing images, the precision of the simulation reached over 68% with higher precision than cellular automata model according to the cell-by-cell comparison. The results suggest that the model can help to provide land use decision making support to government and urban planners.

Simulation of Urban Land Expansion Under Ecological Constraints in Harbin-Changchun Urban Agglomeration,China

Under the demand of urban expansion and the constraints of China’s’National Main Functional Area Planning’policy,urban agglomerations are facing with a huge contradiction between land utilization and ecological protection,especially for HarbinChangchun urban agglomeration who owns a large number of land used for the protection of agricultural production and ecological function.To alleviate this contradiction and provide insight into future land use patterns under different ecological constraints’scenarios,we introduced the patch-based land use simulation(PLUS)model and simulated urban expansion of the Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration.After verifying the accuracy of the simulation result in 2018,we predicted future urban expansion under the constraints of three different ecological scenarios in 2026.The morphological spatial pattern analysis(MSPA)method and minimum cumulative resistance(MCR)model were also introduced to identify different levels of ecological security pattern(ESP)as ecological constraints.The predicted result of the optimal protection(OP)scenario showed less proportion of water and forest than those of natural expansion(NE)and basic protection(BP)scenarios in 2026.The conclusions are that the PLUS model can improve the simulation accuracy at urban agglomeration scale compared with other cellular automata(CA)models,and the future urban expansion under OP scenario has the least threat to the ecosystem,while the expansion under the natural expansion(NE)scenario poses the greatest threat to the ecosystem.Combined with the MSPA and MCR methods,PLUS model can also be used in other spatial simulations of urban agglomerations under ecological constraints.

Land cover changes in the rural-urban interaction of Xi’an region using Landsat TM/ETM data

Landsat ETM/TM data and an artificial neural network （ANN） were applied to analyse the expansion of the city of Xi＇an and land use/cover change of its surrounding area between 2000 and 2003. Supervised classification and normalized difference barren index （NDBI） were used respectively to retrieve its urban boundary. Results showed that the urban area increased by an annual rate of 12.3%, with area expansion from 253.37 km^2 in 2000 to 358.60 km^2 in 2003. Large areas of farmland in the north and southwest were converted into urban construction land. The land use/cover changes of Xi＇an were mainly caused by fast development of urban economy, population immigration from countryside, great development of infrastructure such as transportation, and huge demands for urban market. In addition, affected by the government policy of “returning farmland to woodland”, some farmland was converted into economic woodland, such as Chinese goosebeerv garden, vineyard etc.

Dynamic changes and driving factors of land use under new-type urbanization: A case of Guiyang

With the continuous progress of new-type urbanization in Karst mountain area, how to correctly deal with the relationship between urban economy and land use are attracting much attention. Based on the land-use change data, this paper analyzes the characteristics of land use change and its driving factors in Guiyang with the method of land-use dynamic analysis, land utilization and factor correlation analysis. We get the following results:(1) the change of land use was obvious during 2004 and 2012. The area of arable land and other land were decreased, the rate of decrease are 3.89% and 8.24%. In the meantime, a series of construction land and forest area increased a lot, the rate of increase are 3.89% and 8.24%.(2) The integrated land use dynamic degree of two research stages(2004-2009 and 2009-2012) were decreased from 2.12% to 0.34%, this suggests dynamic changes of land tend to be stable.(3) Four kinds of Land use class have a great contribution to the index of land use degree respectively. The composite index of land use degree rose from 229.58 to 247.19 during 2004 and 2012; the land use is still in the development stage.(4) Economy, population, transportation and policy guidance are the main drivers of land use change.

Characterizing urban expansion of Korla City and its spatial-temporal patterns using remote sensing and GIS methods

Cities provide spatial contexts for populations and economic activities. Determining the spatial-temporal patterns of urban expansion is of particular significance for regional sustainable development. To achieve a better understanding of the spatial-temporal patterns of urban expansion of Korla City, we explore the urban expansion characteristics of Korla City over the period 1995-2015 by employing Landsat TM/ETM＋ images of 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015. Urban land use types were classified using the supervised classification method in ENVI 4.5. Urban expansion indices, such as expansion area, expansion proportion, expansion speed, expansion intensity, compactness, and fractal dimension, were calculated. The spatial-temporal patterns and evolution process of the urban expansion （e.g., urban gravity center and its direction of movement） were then quantitatively analyzed. The results indicated that, over the past 25 years, the area and proportion of urban land increased substantially with an average annual growth rate of 15.18%. Farmland and unused land were lost greatly due to the urban expansion. This result might be attributable to the rapid population growth and the dramatic economic development in this area. The city extended to the southeast, and the urban gravity center shifted to the southeast as well by about 2118 m. The degree of urban compactness tended to decrease and the fractal dimension index tended to increase, indicating that the spatial pattern of Korla City was becoming loose, complex, and unstable. This study could provide a scientific reference for the studies on urban expansion of oasis cities in arid land.

Response of ecosystem service value to land use/cover change in the northern slope economic belt of the Tianshan Mountains, Xinjiang, China

Land use/cover change(LUCC)is becoming more and more frequent and extensive as a result of human activities,and is expected to have a major impact on human welfare by altering ecosystem service value(ESV).In this study,we utilized remote sensing images and statistical data to explore the spatial-temporal changes of land use/cover types and ESV in the northern slope economic belt of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,China from 1975 to 2018.During the study period,LUCC in the study region varied significantly.Except grassland and unused land,all the other land use/cover types(cultivated land,forestland,waterbody,and construction land)increased in areas.From 1975 to 2018,the spatial-temporal variations in ESV were also pronounced.The total ESV decreased by 4.00×10^(8) CNY,which was primarily due to the reductions in the areas of grassland and unused land.Waterbody had a much higher ESV than the other land use/cover types.Ultimately,understanding the impact of LUCC on ESV and the interactions among ESV of different land use/cover types will help improve existing land use policies and provide scientific basis for developing new conservation strategies for ecologically fragile areas.

Urban Expansion and Its Influencing Factors in Natural Wetland Distribution Area in Fuzhou City,China

This paper principally focuses on land use dynamics,urban expansion and underlying driving forces in the Natural Wetland Distribution Area(NWDA)of Fuzhou City in the southeastern China.Based on time series Landsat TM/ETM+imageries and historical data,relationships between urban land expansion and its influencing factors from 1989 to 2009 were analyzed by using an integrated approach of remote sensing(RS)and geographic information system(GIS)techniques.The results showed that built-up land increased from 151.16 km2in 1989 to 383.76 km 2in 2009. Approximately 64.25%of the newly emerging built-up land was converted from cropland(29.47%),forest and shrub (25.78%),water(3.73%),wetland(4.61%),and bare land(0.66%)during 1989 and 2009.With a remarkable decrease in cropland,the proportion of non-agricultural population increased by 23.6%.Moreover,rapid development of infrastructures,facilities,industrial parks,and urban and rural settlements along the Minjiang River resulted in the eastward and southward expansion of built-up land.Additionally,the growth pattern of built-up land in the NWDA is highly correlated with socio-economic factors,including the gross domestic product(GDP),GDP per capita,and structure of industry.As a result,the observed environmental degradation such as loss of cropland and wetland due to heavy pressure of rapid urbanization have greatly impaired the carrying capacity of city.Thus,in addition to scientific and rational policies towards minimizing the adverse effects of urbanization,coordination between the administrative agencies should be urgently strengthened to balance the conflicts between urban development and ecological conservation to make sure the sustainable land use.

The Use of GIS, Remote Sensing and Shannon’s Entropy Statistical Techniques to Analyze and Monitor the Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Urbanization and Sprawl in Zarqa City, Jordan

The aim of this study is to understand and quantify the urban growth and trend in Zarqa city during the period 1990 to 2014 and to produce land use and cover map for the studied area through the use of the GIS and remote sensing techniques with Shannon’s Entropy statistical method. For this purpose, three Landsat images were used for land use classification by using supervised maximum likelihood classification techniques to extract and assess the changes of urban lands. The results indicated that the urban areas in Zarqa city increased by 22.15% in the period from 1990 to 2005 and 14.86% from 2005 to 2014, with a rate of expansion of 0.96 and by 1.31 km2/ year for the two time periods respectively. The entropy value increased from 1.20 in the first period to 1.38 in the second, while the entropy value for the NE, NW, SE and SW zones showed high values, which confirmed that urban expansion and sprawling had existed in the past twenty four years in the study area. Urban expansion and sprawl cause different impacts on the natural, economic, and aesthetic aspects of the city which lead and guide government officials and planners to understand and monitor current growth and visualize future growth.

Peri-urban Development:Discussion with Land Use Zoning,Statutory Provision,and Issues inside Katahari Rural Municipality,Nepal

The peri-urban area is a transitional zone between the city and its hinterlands characterized by mixed land use and intensive flows of resources,people,goods,and services from and to the city center.These zones are generally misguided and haphazardly developed without a proper planning framework.The peri-urban area at present will be the urban area in the future;therefore,it needs planning intervention in its initial stage of growth.Katahari,a peri-urban area of Biratnagar metropolitan city,is developing a spontaneous lack of land use plans.Recently,the Government of Nepal has encouraged the local government to implement land use plans in the provided framework,policy,and guidelines.This study,in this context,attempts to analyze and identify land use issues and potential zones for Katahari rural municipality that also supports planning urban development in the future.The study is based on primary and secondary data and information supported by maps and figures.It is concluded that Katahari has been developed as a multi-function center adjoining the Biratnagar metropolitan city,and future expansion of the city will cover a wide range of rural municipalities.The postal highway that passes through it has attracted a wide range of urban functions.Agriculture,residential,commercial,and industrial are the main land use category at present and needs development control through providing land use zoning and related planning instruments through the increasing role of the stakeholder and the government agencies in the decision-making processes and implementation of spatial development frameworks to regulate peri-urban development in the area which will guide the future planning for liability,economic viability,social inclusion,and environmental sustainability in the area.Spill-over development activities of Biratnagar,have increased the number of economic activities,population growth,and mixed-use development.

Government's Role in Urban Construction Land Expansion

Focusing on urban construction land expansion,governmental influence on expansion of urban construction land in China is analyzed from fiscal decentralization,government game and land system.Due to fiscal decentralization and coupled with GDP-based performance evaluation system,local government seeks to maximizing economic profits.Whereas,land systems such as land property,land expropriation and land transfer system,let the local governments' profit seeking behavior achieved.The conclusion is that the government's role in urban construction land expansion is mainly from local governments.

Quantification of Urban Expansion Using Geospatial Technology—A Case Study in Bangalore

Quantification of urban expansion helps us to understand human induced effects on the environment in a temporal scale. Growing urbanization in Bangalore has resulted in demand for more space and resources. Since last 15 years the landuse and landcover of Bangalore area has been changed drastically due to increase in settlement, urban infrastructure, opening of roads and metros etc. Using geospatial tools, we studied the changes in landuse and landcover over 19 years (1992-2011) of period and changes in transport network over 41 years (1970-2011) in parts of Bangalore. Thus, the current study shows that the built-up area has been increased drastically, tree cover areas have been converted to agricultural lands and agricultural lands to built-up areas due to urbanization. There are also changes in drainage pattern, transport network and encroachment of water bodies. Thus the whole environment is getting affected adversely due to unplanned and rapid urban sprawl.

Driving Mechanism of Urban Space Expansion in Luoyang, China

Urban space expansion is the result of the interaction between internal and external forces of the urban. Based on the remote sensing image data of 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, and the social and economic development data, this paper analyzes the driving mechanism of the Luoyang space expansion characteristics and its correlation characteristics. By using urban land use efficiency index, urban expansion elastic index;urban allometric growth index, and grey correlation analysis in 4 times sections and 3 periods. The research results show that the urban space expansion of Luoyang mainly comes from the needs and support of economic development, the coordination between urban space expansion and population development is poor, and urban space expansion effectively attracts the inflow of external funds, and the settlement of migrants, drives the development of the tertiary industry, and increases the local revenue.

Analyzing Urban Expansion and Spatial Growth Patterns in Barahathawa Municipality of Central Tarai Region, Nepal

The rapid transformation of rural settlements into municipalities in Ne­pal has brought significant changes in land use,and urban expansion and growth patterns mostly through the conversion of agricultural land into the built-up area.The issue is studied taking a case of the rapidly growing town,Barahathawa Municipality of Tarai Region of Sarlahi District.After the declaration of the municipality,several new roads have been opened and upgraded;and the municipality is well-connected to the national transportation network.After promulgated the Constitution of Nepal 2015 and functioning the elected local body,the municipality budget has been increased significantly as a result of increasing municipal investment in so­cio-economic and physical infrastructure development and environmental protection which has attracted people,goods,and services creating the zone of influence on the municipality.One of the changes found in the munici­pality is the increasing built-up area and expansion of urban growth through the decreasing agricultural land.Urban growth has been observed taking place around the Barahathawa Bazaar and main roadsides.The built-up area in Barahathawa municipality has remarkably increased by 183percent with the decrease of shrub and agricultural land within 10 years.Implica­tions of such spatial and temporal dynamics have been a core issue of urban planning in most of the newly declared municipalities in Nepal.

Assessment of Urban Morphology through Local Climate Zone Clas­sification and Detection of the Changing Building States of Siliguri Municipal Corporation and Its Surrounding Area, West Bengal

Progressive population concentration to the urban centres has fuelled urban expansion in both horizontal as well as vertical direction,consequences in the urban landscape change.This growth resulted in posing many complexities towards sustainable urban development which can be counted by observing the changing proportions of natural landscapes and built up areas.Local climate zones(LCZs),a systematic classification of natural lands and built up lands,are identified in Siliguri Municipal Corporation(SMC)and its surrounding region to explore the spatio temporal complexity of urban growth in recent years.Rapid urbanization and population growth of SMC have led to change the building states from low rise to mid and high rise which added an important feature to the urban landscape dynamics of the area.The work intends to provide the vision of spatial urban morphology of the area through investigation of its changing land use and changing urban built space using the LCZ classification.The study shows that the WUDAPT method can accurately generate LCZs,especially the built type LCZs.The results of the proposed LCZ classification scheme are tested using error matrix for the year 2001 and 2021 having coefficient values of 0.79 and 0.81 respectively.The study explores the changing pattern of building states of SMC using LCZ products,which is essential for proper urban planning implementations.