A Study on Spatial Evolution and Development Strategy for Urumqi Metropolitan Area
乌鲁木齐都市圈空间变化及其发展模式研究

In this paper Urumqi metropolitan area is taken as an example for the study.The Urumqi metropolitan area is an oasis urban agglomeration in arid region and plays an important role in Xinjiang.Recently,the government has paid more attention to the Urumqi metropolitan area and the economic co-development.The process of economic co-development will bring out some spatial problems in arid region and possibly a fragile ecosystem.Therefore,it is necessary to study land use change and development modes to guide the regional sustainable development. The data were dealt with and analyzed in ArcGIS Desktop 9.0 software.Based on the TM (1989)/ETM+(2002) which have a spatial resolution of 28.5m,the macro spatial evolution in the study area is analyzed in detail.Based on the data from urban planning maps of 1998,2002 and 2006 and multi-phase land use information,the micro spatial change is also analyzed clearly.As a result,the following conclusions are drawn:(1) From 1989 to 2002,the areas increased in main land uses for agricultural,urban,rural residential and road construction purposes are 457.45km2,115.27km2,26.50km2 and 10.33km2 respectively.These increased parts mainly come from bare land,primary agriculture land and natural vegetation.Agriculture land and built-up land in the north of the study area expands obviously.And the rapid expansion of the built-up land makes the oasis landscape more fragmented to some extent.(2) From 1998 to 2006 the urban land in the Urumqi metropolitan area does not expand apparently.While to each city,in some localities the built-up land expands apparently,even expands toward central city.The main land uses of the center city such as common establishment land,residential land and industrial land are distributed regularly.The common establishment land centralizes within a scope of 2km,the residential land is distributed in a range 2 to 6km and the industrial land is in the range of 7-13km and 10-15km.The middle and small cities do not have such characteristics because of their small land scale.However,the industrial clusters exist through planning in the peripheries of Changji and Miquan,so some industrial land use area appeared.(3) Some problems appearing from the spatial development process of the metropolitan area are discussed.One is that the landscape becomes more fractional,especially the agricultural land and the rural residential land.The other is that administrative boundary restricts the urban expansion process and the central city,Urumqi,can not exert its radiative function in a limited space.Still the other is the cities developed disorderly in space.According to the above problems,we put forward some modes of this area in spatial development to help oasis urban sustainable development.Centralization and separation in space is a better spatial pattern for the Urumqi metropolitan area.Co-development is the foundation for the metropolitan to develop orderly.Re-adjustment of the functional space in the Urumqi metropo