Spatio-temporal Analysis of Land Use Patterns in the Development Corridor of the Pearl River Delta in 1988～1997
珠江三角洲发展走廊1988～1997年土地利用变化特征的空间分析

In this study,remote sensing and GIS are used to analyze spatio-temporal patterns of land use in the development corridor of the Pearl River Delta, South China.The region is leading the nation in economic development and urbanization process.Tremendous land use changes have been witnessed since the economic reform.Methodology is developed to identify the inhomogeneous spatio-temporal patterns of land use in the region.It is found that land use restructuring has taken place in response to economic development.Internal structural changes of agricultural land use can be observed from classified remote sensing imagery.There was a significant decrease in the amounts of paddy fields and other types of agricultural land use in the early 1990s.Rapid urban expansion resulted in the loss of a large amount of agricultural land.Many paddy fields were also converted into other types of agricultural land use for better revenue under the influences of market mechanism.Most of the development sites are uncompleted and have been laid idle for years. Two indicators,compactness index and entropy,are proposed to measure the morphology of land development.The analyses reveal the spatio-temporal variations and restructuring of land use patterns,which reflect the dynamics and complexity of economic and physical factors in the region.It is obvious that the cities or towns of fast economic development are consuming more land resources.More rapid land use changes are mainly concentrated along the eastern development corridor between Guangzhou and Hong Kong.Within the corridor,the cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan have unusually high percentages of land use changes and agricultural land loss.The disparity of using land resources coincides with the findings of other studies that indicate the emerging regional polarization of economic development in the region.