The Study On Designation Of Tongxiang Urban Growth Boundaries

Urban space is the basis of major social activities. In China, with the acceleration of urbanization, urban space is sprawling in the last decades. Urban sprawl not only leads to the inefficient utilization of land resources, but also exacerbates loss of high-quality farmland and ecological security problems. Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) is an important tool which has been proven to limit and manage the urban sprawl effectively. Designating suitable UGBs is an vital task for governments, particularly in water net plain. Therefore, it has become a challenge to designate reasonable UGBs on the basis of specific characteristics for a city.In this thesis, Tongxiang city was taken as the study area. The purpose and meaning of UGBs designation was discussed firstly. The overview and land use of Tongxiang was analyzed. With the utilization of remote sensing and GIS technology, factors of urban spatial expansion process have been analyzed. And, with the idea of ecological protection and establishing suitable evaluation index system, land suitability was evaluated by qualitative and quantitative methods. Based on the aim of ecological protection, smart growth and new urbanism, solid UGBs was determined by the land suitability and protection areas. Finally, elastic UGBs was designated with the basis of reasonable city size in future and other plans such as city general planning.The conclusions are:(1) Economic development, ecological security and policy guidance should be considering for designation of UGBs. (2) For Tongxiang, planning and government policy were major factors for city expansion. Planning such as city general planning had to be dovetailed during UGBs designation. (3) UGBs is enabling for managing urban expansion, improving the efficiency of land use in city, environmental and ecological protection.