Correlation Analysis between Land Use/Cover Change and Air Pollutants—A Case Study in Wuyishan City

Zhipeng Zhu, Guangyu Wang and Jianwen Dong
Additional contact information
Zhipeng Zhu: College of Landscape Architecture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China
Guangyu Wang: Faculty of Forestry, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
Jianwen Dong: College of Landscape Architecture, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 13, 1-15

Abstract: Land use changes have significantly altered the natural environment in which humans live. In urban areas, diminishing air quality poses a large threat to human health. In order to investigate the relationship between land use/cover change (LUCC) and air pollutants of Wuyishan City between 2014–2017, an integrated approach was used by combining remote sensing techniques with a landscape ecology methods. Annual, seasonal, and weekly mean values of air pollutant (SO 2 , NO 2 , CO, PM 10 , O 3 , PM 2.5 , black carbon) concentration and atmospheric visibility were calculated to develop a Pearson correlation between LUCC and air pollutants concentration. Results showed an increase in forested areas (1.79%) and water areas (15.89%), with a simultaneous reduction in cultivated land (6.47%), bare land (72.61%), and built-up land (16.03%) from 2014 to 2017. The transition matrix of land use types revealed that (i) forest expansion took place mainly at the expense of cultivated land (13.94%) and bare land (27.48%); and (ii) water area expansion took place mainly at the expense of cultivated land (1.29%) and forests (0.21%). In 2017, the proportion of days with AQI level I (94.52%) was higher than that in 2014 (88.77%). Additionally, the annual average visibility in 2017 (37.42 km) was higher than 2014 (27.46 km). The concentration of SO 2 , CO, O 3 , and black carbon was positively correlated with the cultivated land. The concentration of SO 2 , CO, and black carbon negatively correlated with the increase of forests. PM 10 , and PM 2.5 is negatively correlated with the water area. Visibility was found to be positively correlated with forested area, and negatively correlated with cultivated land. The findings from this study represent a valuable gain in understanding of policies aimed at improving, safeguarding, and monitoring air quality. These results can be used to inform land-use planning decisions in a comprehensive way and could be a valuable tool for LUCC rational management strategies.

Keywords: land use/cover change (LUCC); air pollution; correlation; Wuyishan City (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/13/2545/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/13/2545/ (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:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:13:p:2545-:d:245034

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

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