Quantified And Forecast Research On The Urban Expansion Morphology

In recent years, with the quickening pace of economic growth and urbanization, the scale of urban construction has been substantially enlarged with the built-up areas being expanded. A rational urban expansion can contribute to the social prosperity, while an irrational one will give rise to a lot of social problems, such as pollution, the loss of arable land and the deterioration of ecological environment. They will all pose a threat to the sustainable growth of our society. Consequently, it is of great significance to conduct a quantified research on the urban expansion morphology. This paper, on the basis of literature review, made a quantified and forecast research on the urban expansion morphology. Its contents and results were as follows:(1) This paper made a comprehensive review concerning urban expansion, focusing mainly on its type, driving force and its rational scale.(2) Based on the literature review, this paper explored the former Hangzhou city's expansion through three spatial indicators and came to a conclusion that it belonged to an extension type. Thus, this paper put forward two relevant suggestions.(3) A thorough discussion was carried out into the driving force mechanism of Hangzhou urban expansion and a relation analysis was conducted involving built-up area and thirteen social and economic indicators.(4) On the basis of the driving force analysis, seven indicators were selected out to forecast the urban expansion situation of Hangzhou in 2005 through giving value to the grids and AHP method. The forecast results conformed to the reality well and a similar forecast can be conducted in 2010.