Contrasting Trends of Forest Coverage between the Inland and Coastal Urban Groups of China over the Past Decades

Qingsong Zhu, Jiaxin Jin, Pengxiang Wang, Yingying Ji, Yuanyuan Xiao, Fengsheng Guo, Changsheng Deng and Lisha Qu
Additional contact information
Qingsong Zhu: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Jiaxin Jin: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Pengxiang Wang: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Yingying Ji: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Yuanyuan Xiao: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Fengsheng Guo: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Changsheng Deng: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China
Lisha Qu: School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Hohai University, Fochengxi Road 8, Nanjing 211100, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 16, 1-19

Abstract: China is building forest urban groups through reforestation and afforestation. However, the fast process of urbanization inevitably conflicts with multiple vegetated areas around cities. Hence, it is critical to evaluate the changes in regional vegetation cover and its spatial pattern due to complex natural and anthropogenic factors. Nevertheless, systematic studies to quantify and compare the development of forest urban agglomerations were rarely reported. Based on a remote sensing landcover dataset from 1992 to 2015, this study investigated forest cover changes and the impacts on landscape pattern in several urban groups, and tried to explore their differences between the inland and coastal regions of China. The results showed that over the past 24 years, the forest coverage in the coastal urban agglomerations declined (103 km 2 /year) while it increased (26 km 2 /year) in the inland urban agglomerations. There was a certain conflict between forest and cropland for the coastal urban agglomerations where the forest area converted to cropland accounted for 61.9% of the total forest loss. The increase in forests coverage in inland urban agglomerations mainly came from grassland which nearly accounted for 66.47% of the total increase. The landscape diversity has also changed in areas where forests have changed significantly (e.g., Shanghai, Changzhi, and Jincheng).

Keywords: forest urban agglomeration; land cover change; landscape pattern; remote sensing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/16/4451/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/16/4451/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:16:p:4451-:d:258485

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().