Urban Land Use And Land Cover Change And Its Driving Factors

Since the1990s, the land use and land cover changes (LUCC) have been one of the hotspots and focuses of global change research. Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan (CZT) UrbanAgglomeration is the typical representative of urban agglomeration of central China. In recentyears, LUCC of this region has become more and more dramatic with the acceleration ofurbanization. Therefore, carrying out LUCC research in CZT Area would not only enrich itsfoundation, but also have very significant sense to land use planning and the sustainabledevelopment of itself and other similar areas in China.In this paper, we selected CZT as research region, and took land use data made by remotesensing images of1990,1995,2000and2007as basis and main data. It was supported bygeographic information system (GIS) technology and related software. And many models ofmathematics, GIS spatial analysis and qualitative and quantitative analysis were used. Then,we revealed the laws of land use dynamic change in different periods, and explored its drivingmechanism, especially in the socio-economic driving force of the change of crop land andurban-rural residential and industrial land. Finally, the trend of LUCC was predicted. Theconclusions are as follows.From the land use change of the whole CZT, we can find some results.(1) Land use andland cover change has been in the development period, and the level of its comprehensiveutilization has been rising from1990to2007. The main land types were crop land andforestland, and other lands shared a smaller proportion. Urban-rural residential and industrialland changed largest and increased most sustained, while crop land, forestland and grasslandwere in sharp decline, and water area increased.(2) The abundance and importance indexes offorestland were biggest, followed by crop land, urban-rural residential and industrial land,water area and grassland. The results reflected the space frequency and importance offorestland for land use structure were the largest and strongest. Meanwhile, the importance ofurban-rural residential and industrial land increased gradually.(3) The transform of land typesmainly expressed that a large number of crop land and forestland transferred into urban-ruralresidential and industrial land.The LUCC similarities and differences of internal CZT expressed as follows.(1) From1990to2007, the structures and change trends of land use in Changsha, Zhuzhou andXiangtan City were consistent. Crop land and forestland were main land types and reducedgradually, while urban-rural residential and industrial land increased rapidly. Thecomprehensive dynamic degree of land use of Changsha was the highest, while the level ofintegrated land use of Xiangtan was higher than other cities.(2) Abundance and importanceindexes of forestland were biggest, followed by crop land, urban-rural residential andindustrial land, water area and grassland, which reflecting their impacts for land structure.(3) A large number of crop land and forestland were transferred into urban-rural residential andindustrial land. The transferred amount of Changsha was more than other two cities. TheLUCC trends of three cities were consistent with the whole CZT region.Between2000and2007, land use extents of the whole CZT and internal cities changedlarger, the utilization degrees were stronger, and mutual transferred areas were more. Theabundance and importance indexes of land types changed obviously, which reflected theintensive land use gradually increased in this period.The qualitative and quantitative analysis methods were used to explore the drivingmechanism of LUCC.(1) Climate, hydrology, geology and geomorphology, soil andvegetation were the main natural factors of land use change, while population, economy,science and technology, and land policy were considered as the main social-human factors.(2)The main socio-economic factors causing crop land change could be summarized asdemographic, economic and agricultural technology, while population, economic andinfrastructure construction were significant factors for urban-rural residential and industrialland. The study result proved the comprehensive influence would enhance continuously.The Markov methods were used to predict the land use trends. Urban-rural residential andindustrial land will change the most. The land and water area will continue to increase, whilecrop land, forestland and grassland will gradually reduce. It is estimated that the proportion ofurban-rural residential and industrial land will increase68.73%to2028. The LUCC trends ofZhuzhou and Xiangtan city were consistent with the whole CZT region. But, the water area ofChangsha city will reduce.