Land-Cover Change in China using Time Series Analysis, 1982

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Land-Cover Change in China using Time Series Analysis, 1982 - 1999

Urbanization in Shanghai Area
Shanghai's current development pattern follows a west-to-east mode. Divided by Huangpu River, the western part of the city is called Puxi, and the eastern Pudong. Puxi has been the old center of the city since 1843. Though Puxi's construction has not ever been suspended since the early 1990s, the construction focus has shifted to the Pudong district. As a result, Shanghai is once again becoming the biggest economic and financial center of China, and creating a so-called "big economic triangle" with Hong Kong and Taiwan (Zhou, 1997).

As opposed to the extensive construction in urban areas, Chongming Island, the third biggest island in China, located at the estuary of Yangtze River, is becoming the most important agricultural base of Shanghai area. The yield of Chongming Island aims at agricultural product markets. Constructing areas solely for agricultural use is its target. Meanwhile, the local government has designed and constructed a 360-hectare man-made forest garden. These policies not only maintain the original natural landscape of Chongming Island, but also make it a new resort for vacation and entertainment.

The PCA for Shanghai area is intended to detect the impacts of human development either resulting in deforestation or reforestation upon NDVI variations. Through the PCA of the series of 1982-1999 yearly average NDVI value, it is found that the continuously rising temporal curve of component 3 can well characterize the progression of urbanization. By comparison and contrast of its spatial characteristic map with its temporal curve, it is clear that urbanization is expanding around the old center of the city in a radial pattern toward the outlying areas. The central zone spatially is significantly negatively correlated to the temporal curve, whereas the spatially negative correlations of the adjacent zones with the curve are gradually dropping down. This tendency also implicitly shows a more rapid urbanization in Pudong than in Puxi, considering that Pudong was originally a large piece of undeveloped cropland in the 1980s. This urban expanding pattern is highly correspondent to the present-day Shanghai's development mode. It is apparent that urbanization is encroaching upon a large amount of croplands and natural forest cover, resulting in the dramatic decrease of NDVI value. As opposed to the development in the central urban area, Chongming Island is experiencing an utterly reverse progression. Spatially, this area is significantly correlated to the rising temporal curve, which is in keeping with its agricultural development mode and reforestation commitment (Chang, 1999).

Urbanization in the Pearl River Delta
Since the early 1980s, along with the rapid opening of China's economy, the Pearl River Delta has become one of China's most vigorous economic zones. Similar to that of Shanghai, the urbanization tendency of the Pearl River Delta can be represented by component 3. Nevertheless, the differences of these two areas are obvious, which is shown explicitly both in the temporal progress and in the spatial expanding pattern of urbanization. Over time, as shown in the temporal curve of component 3, the urbanization of the Pearl River Delta experienced a very rapid jump from 1984 to 1987. This jump corresponds to the fact that Guangzhou and Shenzhen cites were rapidly developing in this period because of the rapid growth of trade with Hong Kong. Since then, the urbanization has continued but gradually been slowing down. This tendency is partly due to the shift of China's economic focus to the Shanghai area (Yang, 1994). Spatially, as opposed to Shanghai's pattern, the urbanization in the Pearl River Delta follows a multiple-center expanding model. That is, urban areas stretch outwards separately around Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and Huizhou and their satellite cities, such as Huadu, Chonghua, and Jiangmen. These cities typically comprise a complete, huge city collection in which cities join together seamlessly.

Conclusions
This thesis investigates the temporal-spatial change pattern of NDVI in China using PCA/TSA. The results have proved that PCA/TSA is a very effective method in which to identify both macro and micro factors driving the change of NDVI. In particular, the thesis paves a way to detect the impacts of extreme physical accidents and human-induced activities upon the NDVI change. The analytical results are quite exciting and satisfactory.

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