‘Urban-Rural’ Gradient Analysis of Landscape Changes around Cities in Mountainous Regions: A Case Study of the Hengduan Mountain Region in Southwest China

Erfu Dai, Yahui Wang (), Liang Ma, Le Yin and Zhuo Wu
Additional contact information
Erfu Dai: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Liang Ma: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Le Yin: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Zhuo Wu: School of Geographical Sciences, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: It is of great significance to explore landscape pattern changes around urban areas to maintain regional ecological security and encourage sustainable development. Few studies have focused on the small cities located in the mountain regions. In this study, we established an ‘urban-rural’ gradient, and combined with landscape metrics to analyze the spatial-temporal changes of the landscape pattern around cities located in the Hengduan Mountain region in China. We also explored the impacts of topography on urban sprawl using the ‘relief degree of land surface’ index. Our results showed that: (1) There was an inverse relationship between the urban sprawl and restricted topography; (2) From the city center to rural areas, the landscape dominance degree and connectivity decreased initially and then increased, while the diversity presented an opposite trend and the shape complexity increased first and then fluctuated; (3) For temporal changes, in the internal buffers, the landscape dominance degree and connectivity increased, and the shape complexity and diversity decreased. However, in the outer buffers, the landscape showed opposite trends. It is advisable to use gradient and landscape metrics to explore landscape pattern changes. Similar to cities on plains, the landscape around mountain cities exhibits a circular structure, however, it also possesses unique characteristics when facing topographic restrictions.

Keywords: landscape pattern; Hengduan Mountain region; urban-rural gradient; landscape metrics; urbanization; land use changes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1019/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1019/ (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:10:y:2018:i:4:p:1019-:d:138847

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 ().