Landscape Greening Policies-based Land Use/Land Cover Simulation for Beijing and Islamabad—An Implication of Sustainable Urban Ecosystems

Shahid Naeem, Chunxiang Cao, Khunsa Fatima, Omaid Najmuddin and Bipin Kumar Acharya
Additional contact information
Shahid Naeem: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 101408, China
Chunxiang Cao: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 101408, China
Khunsa Fatima: Institute of Geographical Information Systems, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Omaid Najmuddin: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 101408, China
Bipin Kumar Acharya: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 101408, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: City green infrastructure (CGI) makes cities more resilient and sustainable, as required by the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 11–Sustainable Cities and Communities. Based on the CGI policies of Beijing, land use/land cover (LULC) changes of two Asian capitals, Beijing, China and Islamabad, Pakistan, are simulated. LULC maps for 2010 and 2015 are developed by applying object-based image analysis (OBIA) to Landsat imagery. Dynamics of land system (DLS) model was used to simulate the LULC changes for 2020 and 2025 under three scenarios: (1) business-as-usual (BAU); (2) urban green space work plan (UGWP); and (3) landscape and greening policies (LGP). Results reveal that DLS is efficient than other simulation models. The BAU scenario predicts an overall expansion in Beijing’s greenery, while Islamabad will encounter a decline by 7.3 km 2 per year. Under the UGWP scenario, urban green spaces and other vegetation area of Beijing will expand by 7.6 km 2 , while, for Islamabad, vegetation degradation rate will slow down to 6.9 km 2 per year. The LGP scenario envisage a massive increase of 23.5 km 2 per year in green resources of Beijing and Islamabad’s green land loss rate will further slowdown to 6.1 km 2 per year. It is inferred from the results that vegetation degradation in Islamabad need to lessen by implementing LGP policy after basic amendments according to the local conditions and available resources.

Keywords: city green infrastructure; land-cover/land-use; dynamics of land system model; simulation (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 (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1049/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1049/ (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:1049-:d:139228

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 ().