Spatio-temporal Analysis Of Urban Built-up Area Expansion In The Pearl River Delta

The essential of urban built-up area expansion is the process that human being constantly adjust and arrange land use in the urban edge to satisfy the development requirements of social economy. The spatial analysis of urban built-up area is the basis of urban development trend analysis, and is important for future urban planning. The Pearl River Delta is located in Guangdong Province, China. It is the first area that set up the economy special zone, and is the front of the open-reform policy. Since 1978, urbanization is fast developed in the Pearl River Delta. As a result, a large amount of cropland reduced. Research on the Pearl River Delta will be useful for the effect research of policy, economy on urbanization.In this study, four cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhongshan and Dongguan, which are located on the development corridor of the Pearl River Delta, are taken into research. Remote sensing images are used to monitor the urban built-up area expansion from 1979-2004.The spatial-temporal patterns of these cities are: during 1979-1989, the expansion rates are all low; during 1989-1999, the rates rose; during 1999-2004, except Shenzhen, the rates of the other three cities went on rising. In the same observation period, the expansion rates of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan are higher than that of Zhonshan all the time. It reflects the imbalance development in this area, which is influenced by the different social economy levels. The expansion patterns are mainly circle expansion and expansion along the traffic lines. During the expansion process, the primary effect is the cropland loss, as well as land of other use types transfer to urban area.