Classification and Extraction of Urban Land-Use Information from High-Resolution Image Based on Object Multi-features

Urban land provides a suitable location for various economic activities which affect the development of surrounding areas. With rapid industrialization and urbanization, the contradictions in land-use become more noticeable. Urban administrators and decision-makers seek modern methods and technology to provide information support for urban growth. Recently, with the fast development of high-resolution sensor technology, more relevant data can be obtained, which is an advantage in studying the sustainable development of urban land-use. However, these data are only information sources and are a mixture of ＂information＂ and ＂noise＂. Processing, analysis and information extraction from remote sensing data is necessary to provide useful information. This paper extracts urban land-use information from a high-resolution image by using the multi-feature information of the image objects, and adopts an object-oriented image analysis approach and multi-scale image segmentation technology. A classification and extraction model is set up based on the multi-features of the image objects, in order to contribute to information for reasonable planning and effective management. This new image analysis approach offers a satisfactory solution for extracting information quickly and efficiently.

Study on the Characteristics and Driving Forces of Changes of the Urban Land-Use Structure in Wuhan in 1990s

On the basis of the information entropy and equilibrium degree of urban land-use spatial structure, the paper analyzes the characteristics and rules of urban land-use spatial structure changes in Wuhan in 1990s, in which the types of land-use are shrinking and urban land-use changes are disequilibria. With PCA and GRA employed, the driving forces have also been analyzed. The driving force of city welfare and social structure, the towing force of city industrial structure transition, and the pressing force of city construction and reconstruction are main momentum factors. Moreover, the latter forces are more significant.

STUDY ON THE URBAN TRANSPORT AND LAND-USE OF GUANGZHOU

Changes in transport are likely to preduce changes in land use, and these long-term effects of transport policy may be of considerable potential importance. There is a growing movement, "The New Urbanism", which seeks to reconnect transport with land use and in particular to eslablish transitoriented development where higher-density,mixed-use areas are built around high-quality transit systems. Based on analysis on development and Pattern of urban transport inGuangzhou, this paper researches composition of urban transportation and struclure of travel pattern. The urban transport system development and change in urban form as well as change in land use are closely related. The urban transport, system required and promnoted by the high-density land-use pattern. There are many problems in the urban transportation and land-use, one of the resolving is integration of urban transport planning and land-use planning.

Impacts of land-use change on ecosystem service value in Changsha,China

Changsha,a typical city in central China,was selected as the study area to assess the variations of ecosystem service value on the basis of land-use change. The analysis not only included the whole city but also the urban district where the landscape changed more rapidly in the center of the city. Two LANDSAT TM data sets in 1986 and 2000 and land use data of five urban districts from 1995 to 2005 were used to estimate the changes in the size of six land use categories. Meanwhile,previously published value coefficients were used to detect the changes in the value of ecosystem services delivered by each land category. The result shows that the total value of ecosystem services in Changsha declines from $1 009.28 million per year in 1986 to $938.11 million per year in 2000. This decline is largely attributable to the increase of construction land,and the conversion from woodland and water body to cropland to keep the crop production. In the five districts,there is $6.19 million decline in ecosystem service value between 1995 and 2005. Yuelu District has the highest unit ecosystem service value while Yuhua District has the lowest one. This may be attributed to the greater conversion from cropland and grassland to woodland and water body with the increase of construction land in Yuelu District. It is suggested that the increase rate of construction land should be controlled rigorously and the area of woodland and water body should be increased or at least retained in the study area.

Monitoring Land-Use Change in Nakuru (Kenya) Using Multi-Sensor Satellite Data

Recently land-use change has been the main concern for worldwide environment change and is being used by city and regional planners to design sustainable cities. Nakuru in the central Rift Valley of Kenya has undergone rapid urban growth in last decade. This paper focused on urban growth using multi-sensor satellite imageries and explored the potential benefits of combining data from optical sensors (Landsat, Worldview-2) with Radar sensor data from Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) data for urban land-use mapping. Landsat has sufficient spectral bands allowing for better delineation of urban green and impervious surface, Worldview-2 has a higher spatial resolution and facilitates urban growth mapping while PALSAR has higher temporal resolution compared to other operational sensors and has the capability of penetrating clouds irrespective of weather conditions and time of day, a condition prevalent in Nakuru, because it lies in a tropical area. Several classical and modern classifiers namely maximum likelihood (ML) and support vector machine (SVM) were applied for image classification and their performance assessed. The land-use data of the years 1986, 2000 and 2010 were compiled and analyzed using post classification comparison (PCC). The value of combining multi-temporal Landsat imagery and PALSAR was explored and achieved in this research. Our research illustrated that SVM algorithm yielded better results compared to ML. The integration of Landsat and ALOS PALSAR gave good results compared to when ALOS PAL- SAR was classified alone. 19.70 km2 of land changed to urban land-use from non-urban land-use between the years 2000 to 2010 indicating rapid urban growth has taken place. Land-use information is useful for the comprehensive land-use planning and an integrated management of resources to ensure sustainability of land and to achieve social Eq- uity, economic efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Analyzing land use characteristics of rural settlements on the urban fringe of Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing, China

The objective of this paper is to analyze land use characteristics of rural settlements in urban fringe so as to provide references for optimizing the regional distribution of rural settlements, consolidating rural settlements, and coordinating urban-rural integrated development. The methods of spatial statistical analysis, buffer analysis, Ripley's K function, kernel density analysis based on GIS(Geographic Information System) were used to analyze the characteristics of scale, spatial differentiation and spatial patterns of the rural settlements in Liangjiang New Area in Chongqing Municipality of China. The fractal dimension formula was also developed to reflect fractal feature of the rural settlements. The results show that, the scale of rural settlements in Liangjang New Area takes on distinct characteristics of spatial differentiation along with changes in elevation, gradient, location, geohazards distribution, and the like. The fractal characteristic of rural settlements has obvious regional variations subject to the 6 factors of location in the Liangjiang New Area. Overall, the worse the terrain conditions are, the larger the fractal dimension values become. The better the locationconditions, the larger the fractal dimension values are. The spatial pattern in the township scale presents three kinds of distribution as being aggregated, uniform and random. In contract, the spatial pattern in the plaque scale displays a banding distribution from a general view with several aggregation zones centering on each town center. From the results, we can see that the characteristics of rural settlements in urban fringe are more complicated. For such kind of rural settlements in special regions, in the rural land consolidation more attention should be paid to improve the rural living environments and public services, as well as to promote the harmonious relationship between the urban and rural areas.

Urban Development Boundary Simulation Based on“Double Evaluation”and FLUS Model

The delimitation of urban development boundaries plays an important role in optimizing the nation land space.“Double evaluation”is one of the important means to study and predict the scale of new construction land in the future and to determine the spatial distribution of urban construction land.This study combines the“double evaluation”with the FLUS(Future Land-Use Simulation)model to study the delimitation of the urban development boundary of Yichang.The results show that:(1)the“double evaluation”method comprehensively considers the carrying capacity of the resource environmental bear and the suitability of urban development;(2)the FLUS model can better couple the“double evaluation”method for Land Use/Land Cover(LULC)suitability evaluation,Land Use/land Cover Change(LUCC)simulation and urban development boundary delineation,and the overall accuracy of the simulation reaches 96%;(3)according to the requirements of relevant national policies,this study divides the urban development boundary of the study area into concentrated construction areas,elastic development areas and special purpose areas.This function-based division can meet the requirements of urban flexible development,ecological protection and urban safety.This research combines the FLUS model,which is widely used in the simulation of LUCC,with the double evaluation method used in China’s new round of land and space planning to obtain the result of the urban development boundary.This result is consistent with the existing plan of the study area.

Urban Heat Island Assessment for a Tropical Urban Airshed in India

There has been paucity of field campaigns in India in past few decades on the urban heat island intensities (UHI). Remote sensing observations provide useful information on urban heat island intensities and hotspots as supplement or proxy to in-situ surface based measurements. A case study has been undertaken to assess and compare the UHI and hotspots based on in-situ measurements and remote sensing observations as the later method can be used as a proxy in absence of in-situ measurements both spatially and temporally. Capital of India, megacity Delhi has grown by leaps and bounds during past 2 - 3 decades and strongly represents tropical climatic conditions where such studies and field campaigns are practically non-existent. Thus, a field campaign was undertaken during summer, 2008 named DELHI-I (Delhi Experiments to Learn Heat Island Intensity-I) in this megacity. Urban heat island effects were found to be most dominant in areas of dense built up infrastructure and at commercial centers. The heat island intensity (UHI) was observed to be higher in magnitude both during afternoon hours and night hours (maximum up to 8.3?C) similar to some recent studies. The three high ranking urban heat island locations in the city are within commercial and/or densely populated areas. The results of this field campaign when compared with MODIS-Terra data of land surface temperature revealed that UHI hotspots are comparable only during nighttime. During daytime, similar comparison was less satisfactory. Further, available relationship of maximum UHI with population data is applied for the current measurements and discussed in the context of maximum UHI of various other countries.

Surface Regional Heat(Cool) Island Effect and Its Diurnal Differences in Arid and Semiarid Resource-based Urban Agglomerations

With the rapid development of urban agglomerations in northwest arid and semiarid regions of China, the scope of the urban heat island(UHI) effect has gradually expanded and gradually connected, and has formed a regional heat island(RHI) with a larger range of impact to the regional environment. However, there are few studies on the heat island effect of urban agglomerations in arid and semiarid regions, so this paper selects the urban agglomeration of Hohhot, Baotou and Ordos(HBO) of Inner Mongolia, China as the study area. Based on the 8-day composite Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS) surface temperature data(156scenes in all) and land use maps for 2005, 2010, and 2015, we analyze the spatiotemporal distributions of regional heat(cool) islands(RH(C)I) and the responses of surface temperatures to land-use changes in the diurnal and interannual surface cities. The results showed that: 1) from 2005 to 2015, urban areas showed the cold island effect during the day, with the area of the cold island showing a shrinking feature;at night, they showed the heat island effect, with the area of the heat island showing a first decrease and then an increase.2) From 2005 to 2015, the land development(unutilized land to building land) brings the greatest temperature increase(ΔT = 1.36°C)during the day, while the greatest temperature change at night corresponds to the conversion of cultivated land to building land(ΔT =0.78°C) exhibited the largest changes at night. From 2010 to 2015, the land development(grassland to building land) bring the greatest temperature increase(ΔT = 0.85°C) during the day, while the great temperature change at night corresponds to the conversion of water areas to building land(ΔT = 1.38°C) exhibited the largest changes at night. Exploring the spatial and temporal evolution of surface urban heat(cool) islands in urban agglomerations in arid and semiarid regions will help to understand the urbanization characteristics of urban agglomerations and provide a reference for the formulation of policies for the coordinated and healthy development of the region and co-governance of regional environmental problems.

The Assessment and Predicting of Land Use Changes to Urban Area Using Multi-Temporal Satellite Imagery and GIS: A Case Study on Zanjan, IRAN (1984-2011)

Due to inappropriate planning and management, accelerated urban growth and tremendous loss in land, especially cropland, have become a great challenge for sustainable urban development [1]. Detection of such changes may help decision makers and planners to understand the factors in land use and land cover changes in order to take effective and useful measures. Remote sensing and GIS techniques may be used as efficient tools to detect and assess land use changes.In recent years, a considerable land use changes have occurred in the greater Zanjan area. In order to understand the type and rate of changes in this area, Landsat TM images captured in 1984 and 2011 have been selected for comparison.First, geometric correction and contrast stretch are applied. In order to detect and evaluate land use changes, image differencing, principal component analyses and Fuzzy ARTMAP classification method are applied. Finally, the results of land cover classification for three different times are compared to reveal land use changes.Then, combined Cellular Automata with Markov Chain analysis is employed to forecast of human impacts on land use change until 2020 in Zanjan area. The results of the present study disclose that about 44 percents of the total area changed their land use, e.g., changing agricultural land, orchard and bare land to settlements, construction of industrial areas and highways. The crop pattern also changes, such as orchard land to agricultural land and vice versa. The mentioned changes have occurred within last 27 years in Zanjan city and its surrounding area.

Spatial relationship of high-speed transportation construction and land-use efficiency and its mechanism:Case study of Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration

Land-use efficiency is low for the urban agglomeration of China. High-speed transportation construction has been an important factor driving land use change. It is critically important to explore the spatial relationship between the high-speed transportation superiority degree and land-use efficiency. We built a model to evaluate the benefits of convenient high-speed transportation using the relative density of highways and the distance from high-speed rail stations and airports as a metric. We used 42 counties of the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration as an example. Land-use efficiency was calculated by a DEA model with capital, labor, economic benefits and environmental benefits as input and output factors. We examined the spatial relationships between high-speed transport superiority degree and land-use efficiency and obtained the following results. First, there are significant spatial differences in the relationships between the high-speed transportation superiority degree and land-use efficiency. Taking the two major cities of Jinan and Qingdao as the hubs, the core surrounding counties show significant spatial relationship between land-use efficiency and the high-speed transportation superiority degree. Spatial correlation declines as the distance from the hubs increases. Land-use efficiency is less than high-speed transportation convenience in areas along the transportation trunks that are distant from the hub cities. Correlation is low in areas that are away from both hub cities and transportation trunk routes. Second, high-speed transportation has a positive relationship with land-use efficiency due to the mechanism of element agglomeration exogenous growth. Third, high-speed transportation facilitates the flow of goods, services and technologies between core cities and peripheral cities as space spillover(the hub effect). This alters the spatial pattern of regional land-use efficiency. Finally, the short-board effect caused by decreased high-speed transport construction can be balanced by highway construction and the proper node layouts of high-speed rail stations and airports, resulting in a well-balanced spatial pattern of land-use efficiency.

Numerical Simulations of Impacts of Urbanization on Heavy Rainfall in Beijing Using Different Land-Use Data

A summer strong convective precipitation event on 10 July 2004 over Beijing is numerically simulated in this paper, and the impact of urban heat island （UHI） on summer convective rain is investigated. The analysis reveals that a mesoscaie convective cloud cluster system leads to this heavy rainfall event, suggesting the supply of moisture by the large scale circulation before the initiation of precipitation, a generally weaker UHI of 2-3℃ existed in the urban area. Much like a sea breeze, the anomalously warm urban air created relatively low pressure, inducing the inflow of cooler rural air towards the urban center, which is favorable to the ascending motion and the formation of convective precipitation over the urban area. In addition, the numerical simulation of the strong convective precipitation event suggests that the simulated result of precipitation using the 2002 LANDSAT-7 land-use data with 30-m resolution is much better than that using the 1992-1993 USGS land-use data with 1-km resolution, whether in the magnitude of rainfall or in the location of precipitation. The simulation confirms to some extent that the UHI has a significant role in causing extreme rainfall event.

Impact of Urban Land-Use Change in Eastern China on the East Asian Subtropical Monsoon:A Numerical Study

The effect of urban land-use change in eastern China on the East Asian subtropical monsoon（EASTM） is investigated by using the Community Atmosphere Model version 5.1.Comparison of the results between the urban expansion and reference experiments shows that with the urban expansion,the land surface energy balance alters：surface net radiation and sensible heat fluxes enhance while the latent heat fluxes reduce.As a result,a significant increase in surface air temperature over eastern China is detected.The urban land-use change contributes to a change in the zonal land-sea temperature difference（LSTD）,leading to a delay in the time when LSTD changes from positive to negative,and vice versa.Additionally,the onset and retreat dates of the EASTM are also delayed.Meanwhile,the rise in surface air temperature leads to formation of abnormal northerly air flows,which may be the reason for the slower northward movement of the EASTM and a more southward location of its northern boundary.

Restoration of an Inner-City Stream and Its Impact on Air Temperature and Humidity Based on Long-Term Monitoring Data

Spatiotemporal changes in air temperature and humidity associated with the restoration of an innercity stream in Seoul, Korea, are investigated based on long-term monitoring data. The Cheonggye stream, covered under a concrete structure for 46 years, was restored in 2005 and runs 5.8 km eastward through a central region of Seoul. Long-term monitoring of the air temperature and relative humidity was made along the stream throughout the restoration and across the stream after the restoration. The area along the stream had a higher air temperature than the entire metropolitan area. The temperature anomaly between the monitoring area and the surrounding metropolitan area was 0.13℃ lower on average at the center of the stream after the restoration. The stream＇s effect on the air temperature was also evident in the temperature distribution along a street traversing the stream. The relative and specific humidities were increased due to the restoration. The restored stream modified the nearby urban climate in the opposite direction compared to urbanization. The results could be used as a model case in mitigating urban climate by a stream in future urban planning practices.

Land-use zoning in fast developing coastal area with ACO model for scenario decision-making

Potential ecological environment risks have been emerged as the result of land-use change(e.g.urbanization)in coastal areas.Conflicts between urban growth and ecological conservation should be brought to the forefront especially in the fast developing coastal areas.An optimized landscape pattern for land-use planning could reduce the risk at the regional scale.The cell-based allocation of different land use into the geospace(i.e.land-use spatial zoning,LUSZ)to form optimal pattern with planning objectives and constrains could be viewed as a spatial optimization problem.This study aims to develop a framework incorporated with ant colony algorithm optimization(ACO)to solve LUSZ problem based on the planning guideline of China.Three planning scenarios(i.e.development focusing on urban growth,development considering ecological conversion,and coordinative development between growth and protection)were devised and analyzed with the study area of Doumen District.Comparative analysis with landscape metrics and suitability evaluation indicates that scenario of coordinative development is more available and plausible for land-use change management.This study provides a quantitative and feasible procedure to achieve optimal development pattern on given planning objectives.Moreover,it also demonstrates that cell-based spatial optimization model can generate optimal planning scenarios for decision-making.

Carbon Stock Changes in Soil and Aboveground Biomass from House Lot Development in King County, Washington, USA

Fossil fuel burning and deforestation have driven dramatic increases in atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution. However, forests in the northern temperate region sequester a substantial (~0.6 Pg?yr–1) amount of carbon (C), largely through the regrowth of secondary forests that were originally cleared for timber over one hundred years ago. In the United States, however, some regions are approaching a maximum regrowth as forests are cleared again, this time for suburban and exurban development. Here we explore the effects of such development on C stocks in King County, WA, an area with high forest cover but rapid suburban expansion. We measured soil and biomass C on 18 paired-house/forest lots, and found house lots stored ~80 Mg?C?ha–1 less soil C, and between 130 and 280 Mg?C?ha–1 less above-ground biomass C than adjacent forest lots. Combining soil C losses with estimates of C emissions from forest products yields average C emissions of 130 - 280 Mg?C?ha–1, with the majority of losses occurring at the time of lot conversion. As a comparison, suburban dwellers drive ~30% more than city residents, but this increase in annual emissions from increased driving is 1% - 2.5% of the losses of C associated with converting forests to house lots. If forestland conversion in the Seattle area continues apace, in the coming decades C emissions each year from that land-use conversion will equal ~4% of King County’s 2008 C emissions.

Effectiveness of urban distributed runoff model for discharge and water depth calculation in urban drainage pipe networks

Effective urban land-use re-planning and the strategic arrangement of drainage pipe networks can significantly enhance urban flood defense capacity.Aimed at reducing the potential risks of urban flooding,this paper presents a straightforward and efficient approach to an urban distributed runoff model(UDRM).The model is developed to quantify the discharge and water depth within urban drainage pipe networks under varying rainfall intensities and land-use scenarios.The Nash efficiency coefficient of UDRM exceeds 0.9,which indicates its high computational efficiency and potential benefit in predicting urban flooding.The prediction of drainage conditions under both current and re-planned land-use types is achieved by adopting different flood recurrence intervals.The findings reveal that the re-planned land-use strategies could effectively diminish flood risk upstream of the drainage pipe network across 20-year and 50-year flood recurrence intervals.However,in the case of extreme rainfall events(a 100-year flood recurrence),the re-planned land-use approach fell short of fulfilling the requirements necessary for flood disaster mitigation.In these instances,the adoption of larger-diameter drainage pipes becomes an essential requisite to satisfy drainage needs.Accordingly,the proposed UDRM effectively combines land-use information with pipeline data to give practical suggestions for pipeline modification and land-use optimization to combat urban floods.Therefore,this methodology warrants further promotion in the field of urban re-planning.

An EcoCity model for regulating urban land cover structure and thermal environment： Taking Beijing as an example

Urban land-use/cover changes and their effects on the eco-environment have long been an active research topic in the urbanization field. However, the characteristics of urban inner spatial heterogeneity and its quantitative relationship with thermal environment are still poorly understood, resulting in ineffective application in urban ecological planning and management.Through the integration of "spatial structure theory" in urban geography and "surface energy balance" in urban climatology, we proposed a new concept of urban surface structure and thermal environment regulation to reveal the mechanism between urban spatial structure and surface thermal environment. We developed the EcoCity model for regulating urban land cover structure and thermal environment, and established the eco-regulation thresholds of urban surface thermal environments. Based on the comprehensive analysis of experimental observation, remotely sensed and meteorological data, we examined the spatial patterns of urban habitation, industrial, infrastructure service, and ecological spaces. We examined the impacts of internal land-cover components(e.g., urban impervious surfaces, greenness, and water) on surface radiation and heat flux. This research indicated that difference of thermal environments among urban functional areas is closely related to the proportions of the land-cover components.The highly dense impervious surface areas in commercial and residential zones significantly increased land surface temperature through increasing sensible heat flux, while greenness and water decrease land surface temperature through increasing latent heat flux. We also found that different functional zones due to various proportions of green spaces have various heat dissipation roles and ecological thresholds. Urban greening projects in highly dense impervious surfaces areas such as commercial, transportation, and residential zones are especially effective in promoting latent heat dissipation efficiency of vegetation, leading to strongly cooling effect of unit vegetation coverage. This research indicates that the EcoCity model provides the fundamentals to understand the coupled mechanism between urban land use structure and surface flux and the analysis of their spatiotemporal characteristics. This model provides a general computational model system for defining urban heat island mitigation, the greening ratio indexes, and their regulating thresholds for different functional zones.

Near real-time characterisation of urban environments: a holistic approach for monitoring dengue fever risk areas

Despite frequent use of digital devices in everyday life,cost-effective measurement of public health issues in urban areas is still challenging.This study was,therefore,planned to extract land-use types using object-based and spatial metric approaches to explore the dengue incidence in relation to the surrounding environment in near real-time using Google and Advanced Land Observation Satellite images.The characterised image showed useful classification of an urban areawith 77%accuracy and 0.68 kappa.Geospatial analysis on public health data indicated that most of the dengue cases were found in densely populated areas surrounded by dense vegetation.People living in independent houses having sparsely vegetated surroundings were found to be less vulnerable.Disease incidence was more prevalent in people of 5-24 years of age(67%);while in terms of occupation,mostly students,the unemployed,labourers and farmers(88%)were affected.In general,males were affected slightly more(10%)than females.Proximity analyses indicated that most of the dengue cases were around institutions(40%),religious places(18%)and markets(15%).Thus,usage of Digital Earth scalable tools for monitoring health issues would open new ways for maintaining a healthy and sustainable society in the years ahead.

中国城市高质量发展与土地利用之间的耦合协调关系演变--基于探索性时空分析的新证据

Urbanization interacts with land use through resource consumption and space en-croachment.Clarifying the spatial correlations of the interactive relationship between urbaniza-tion and land use,along with their spatiotemporal dynamics,is of vital importance for address-ing the complex interplay between urban development and land resources and identifying re-gional differences.However,previous studies have not sufficiently explored these issues.Herein,we introduce a coupling coordination degree(CCD)model and present the results of exploratory spatiotemporal analyses involving in-depth investigation of the CcD between ur-banization quality and land-use intensity in 290 Chinese cities.The results demonstrate that the CcD for most cities was at the transition-period or basic-coordination stage.The dynamics of the spatial correlation of the CCD was found to increase from the east to the central and west-ern regions,but this was found to decline overall.The movement direction and spatial de-pendence of the local spatial structure of the CcD exerted a dominant synergistic effect.The transition of the spatial correlation was mainly Type I(stable local and neighboring morphology),showing strong transfer inertia,path dependence,and locking features.Dynamic transitions occurred more in central and eastern cities.The results suggest that more cross-city coopera-tion could contribute to moderate land-resource exploitation for high-quality urbanization.