Spatiotemporal Fragmentation of Urban Residential Land Use: A Case Study from China

Xue Liu, Helin Liu, Wanzhen Chen and Zhonghao Zhang
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Xue Liu: School of Geographic and Oceanographic Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Helin Liu: School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
Wanzhen Chen: Department of Social Work, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China
Zhonghao Zhang: Institute of Urban Studies, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-13

Abstract: Given the scarcity of land resources in most Chinese cities, the fragmentation of construction land use is a greater constraint than expansion for urban sustainability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to quantify the fragmentation level of construction land use for planning and managing practices. This study focuses on residential land use, which is one of the most important types of construction land use within built-up urban areas. Based on land use maps of the built-up areas, derived from master plans between 1994 and 2015, multi-spatiotemporal patterns of residential land use fragmentation are classified through a case study of Nantong, a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing city. The results show that the fragmentation of residential land use presented a slight descending trend from 1994 to 2002, and a sharp ascending trend from 2003 to 2015. Moreover, residential land use fragmentation in newly established zones witnessed the highest increase in fragmentation. Additionally, the analysis reveals that the fragmentation of residential land use reflects distinct variations across different urbanization stages, and the fragmentation level of residential land use is related to development density in Nantong city. Finally, socio-economic data was used to provide a quantitative insight into exploring the driving forces through multivariate linear regression. The results show that, triggered by land market reform, residential land use fragmentation in Nantong was mainly due to the rapid growth of the tertiary industry, and government policies.

Keywords: residential land use fragmentation; landscape metrics; driving forces; urbanization; Nantong (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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