The intensity change of urban development land: Implications for thecity master plan of Guangzhou, China

Jianzhou Gong^a,?, Wenli Chen^b, Yansui Liu^c, Jieyong Wang^c

a School of Geographical Sciences, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China

b Guangdong Party Institute of Chinese Communist Party, CCP, Guangzhou 510053, China

c Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China

Abstract: The Chinese economy has experienced substantial development over the last thirty years. This growth hasresulted in an enormous expansion of China＊s urban areas and it has also led to a growing scarcity of landresources. Consequently, there is currently an urgent need to mitigate the conflict between the needsof growing urban areas and the shrinking supply of land resources. Understanding land-use intensityand its changes can provide important information to find mitigating measures for this conflict in thedemand for land. Previous studies have found that increasing the utilization efficiency of land resourcesis one of the most effective ways to resolve this issue. This study focuses on the city of Guangzhou,which is an intensively developed megalopolis. A number of different data sources have been analyzedto find the characteristics and changes in urban land use in Guangzhou, including: Landsat data from1979, 1990, 2000, and 2009; relative socioeconomic data from the Guangzhou statistic yearbooks; andthe master plans of Guangzhou. The results indicate that the area of developed land has continued toincrease. Urban development land intensity and its change were then explored using a Back Propagationneural network model of the city. Although the analysis revealed that urban development land did nothave a higher intensity overall, it also showed that there was a sectional upward trend throughout thestudy period. Consequently, there is a potential to improve the land-use intensity of Guangzhou. A linearregression model was then adopted to explore the mechanism of land use change. The results reveal thatrapid industrialization and urbanization have improved land-use intensity in Guangzhou. The per capitaurban road area and per capita GDP show a strong relationship when compared with land-use intensity.Using the relative city master plans, the authors have argued that local government in Guangzhou hastaken active steps to address land issues to promote the city＊s socioeconomic development; however,a scientific city master plan in the study area is still necessary to ensure the effective utilization of thecity＊s limited land resources.

Keywords:Land-use intensity; Urban development land; City master plan; Guangzhoua