Tracking spatial–temporal landscape changes of impervious surface areas, bare lands, and inundation areas in China during 2001–2017. (25th July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Qiu, Bingwen; Li, Haiwen; Chen, Chongcheng; Tang, Zhenghong; Zhang, Ke; Berry, Joe
• Is Part Of: Land degradation & development. Volume 30:Number 15(2019)
• Page Start: 1802
• Page End: 1812
• Publication Date: 2019-07-25
• Subjects: automatic mapping -- devegetation -- inundation -- spatiotemporal patterns -- urbanization; Land degradation -- Periodicals; Soil conservation -- Periodicals; Reclamation of land -- Periodicals; Land use -- Periodicals; Economic development -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; 333.7315
• DOI: 10.1002/ldr.3352
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1085-3278

Abstract

Abstract: Efficient and timely quantification of landscape changes of urbanization, devegetation, and inundation in China is important for decision making in sustainable development. This study proposed a novel and automatic approach to track landscape changes in China based on 500 m 8‐day composite MODIS datasets from 2001 to 2017. An overall accuracy of 94.09% was achieved on the basis of 5, 178 references sites. Results showed that newly impervious surface areas (ISA), bare lands, and inundated water bodies accounted for 0.51%, 0.23%, and 0.25% of the total land area in China, respectively. Rapid urbanization transformation was observed with the average annual land urbanization rate of 9.53%, almost three‐times higher than the global rate of urbanization. The speediest period of urbanization was exhibited in 2009 and 4, 938.89 km 2 of newly formed ISA were generated in this single year. The most obvious period of devegetation, which converted vegetation to bare lands, was observed from 2006 to 2009, with 2000–2100 km 2 yr −1 . Urbanization and devegetation dominantly occurred in humid/semihumid regions (>85%), particularly in the Yangtze River Delta. The remarkable devegetation was strongly associated with newly ISA; however, significant reduction of devegetation was observed in arid/semiarid regions in 2010s. Besides one hotspot surrounding newly ISA, the other hotspot of inundation in remote highlands was highlighted and distinct reduction in inundation was evidenced after 2010. A free download link for these datasets is attached (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZGSk3sP04ob77lmLTH01B0x1PEgjby7w?usp=sharing ).