Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Urban Sprawl in Chinese Port Cities from 1979 to 2013

Minmin Li, Zengxiang Zhang, Danny Lo Seen, Jian Sun and Xiaoli Zhao
Additional contact information
Minmin Li: Renewable Resources Division, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 20 DaTun Road, Beijing 100101, China
Zengxiang Zhang: Renewable Resources Division, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 20 DaTun Road, Beijing 100101, China
Danny Lo Seen: UMR TETIS Maison de la Télédétection, La Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement, 500 Rue Jean François Breton, 34000 Montpellier, France
Jian Sun: Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, 3200 Croul Hall, Irvine, CA 92697, USA
Xiaoli Zhao: Renewable Resources Division, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 20 DaTun Road, Beijing 100101, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-23

Abstract: China has been through a period of remarkable urban sprawl since the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, with the highest urbanization occurring in the coastal zones. Sustainable urban development requires a better understanding of the spatiotemporal characteristics of urbanization. This study systematically explored urban sprawl in Chinese coastal cities with a visual interpretation method from 1979 to 2013. The results show that urban built-up areas kept increasing at a faster pace during the study period (i.e., increased about 9-fold in 34 years), especially in the first decade of the 21st century. Spatially, urban sprawl intensity generally peaked in the urban fringe. Urban built-up areas expanded mostly at a cost to cultivated land and non-urban built-up land, and became more irregular and less compact through the study period. Land-use policies, economic development levels, port developments and locations are all closely related with urban sprawl in these port cities. The results also suggest that improving the utilization efficiency of urban land and coordinating the development of city and port are necessary and important for sustainable development in coastal cities.

Keywords: urban sprawl; land use change; spatiotemporal characteristics; visual interpretation; port cities; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1138/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1138/ (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:8:y:2016:i:11:p:1138-:d:82199

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 ().