Abstract
China has experienced rapid urbanizations with dramatic land cover changes since 1978. Forest loss is one of land cover changes, and it induces various eco-environmental degradation issues. As one of China’s hotspot regions, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) has undergone a dramatic urban expansion. To better understand forest dynamics and protect forest ecosystem, revealing the processes, patterns and underlying drivers of forest loss is essential. This study focused on the spatiotemporal evolution and potential driving factors of forest loss in the GBA at regional and city level. The Landsat time-series images from 1987 to 2017 were used to derive forest, and landscape metrics and geographic information system (GIS) were applied to implement further spatial analysis. The results showed that: 1) 14.86% of the total urban growth area of the GBA was obtained from the forest loss in 1987–2017; meanwhile, the forest loss area of the GBA reached 4040.6 km2, of which 25.60% (1034.42 km2) was converted to urban land; 2) the percentages of forest loss to urban land in Dongguan (19.14%), Guangzhou (18.35%) and Shenzhen (15.81%) were higher than those in other cities; 3) the forest became increasingly fragmented from 1987–2007, and then the fragmentation decreased from 2007 to 2017); 4) the landscape responses to forest changes varied with the scale; and 5) some forest loss to urban regions moved from low-elevation and gentle-slope terrains to higher-elevation and steep-slope terrains over time, especially in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Urbanization and industrialization greatly drove forest loss and fragmentation, and, notably, hillside urban land expansion may have contributed to hillside forest loss. The findings will help policy makers in maintaining the stability of forest ecosystems, and provide some new insights into forest management and conservation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cao S X, Chen L, Liu Z D, 2009. An investigation of Chinese attitudes toward the environment: case study using the grain for green project. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment, 38(1): 55–64. doi: https://doi.org/10.1579/0044-7447-38.1.55
Carranza M L, Hoyos L, Frate L et al., 2015. Measuring forest fragmentation using multitemporal forest cover maps: forest loss and spatial pattern analysis in the Gran Chaco, central Argentina. Landscape and Urban Planning, 143: 238–247. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2015.08.006
Cerrillo R M N, Vieira D J E, Ochoa-Gaona S et al., 2019. Land cover changes and fragmentation in mountain neotropical ecosystems of Oaxaca, Mexico under community forest management. Journal of Forestry Research, 30: 143–155. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-017-0568-3
Chen M W, Zong Y G, Ma Q et al., 2007. Quantitative study on spatio-temporal change of urban landscape pattern based on RS/GIS: a case of Xi’an metropolitan area in China. In: Proceedings of SPIE 6752, Geoinformatics 2007: Remotely Sensed Data and Infor-mation. Nanjing: SPIE. doi: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.760778
Collinge S K, 1996. Ecological consequences of habitat fragmentation: implications for landscape architecture and planning. Landscape and Urban Planning, 36(1): 59–77. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-2046(96)00341-6
Congalton R G, 1991. A review of assessing the accuracy of classifications of remotely sensed data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 37(1): 35–46. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-4257(91)90048-B
Deng L, Shangguan Z P, Li R, 2012. Effects of the grain-for-green program on soil erosion in China. International Journal of Sediment Research, 27(1): 120–127. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S10016279(12)60021-3
Deng L, Liu G B, Shangguan Z P, 2014. Land-use conversion and changing soil carbon stocks in China’s ‘Grain-for-Green’ program: a synthesis. Global Change Biology, 20(11): 3544–3556. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12508
Department of Forest Resources Management (DFRM), SFA, 2010. The 7th national forest inventory and status of forest resources. Forest Resources Management, (1): 1–8. (in Chinese)
Du J F, Thill J C, Peiser R B et al., 2014. Urban land market and land-use changes in post-reform China: a case study of Beijing. Land-scape and Urban Planning, 124: 118–128. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2014.01.012
FAO-Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 2012. State of the World’S Forests, 2012. Rome, Italy: FAO. http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/i3010e/i3010e00.htm.
Foody G M, 2002. Status of land cover classification accuracy assessment. Remote Sensing of Environment, 80(1): 185–201. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0034-4257(01)00295-4
Foody G M, Mathur A, 2004. A relative evaluation of multiclass image classification by support vector machines. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 42(6): 1335–1343. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2004.827257
Gao J, Liu Y S, 2011. Deforestation in Heilongjiang Province of China, 1896–2000: severity, spatiotemporal patterns and causes. Applied Geography, 35(1–2): 345–352. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2012.08.001
Garcia C A, Savilaakso S, Verburg R W et al., 2020. The global forest transition as a human affair. One Earth, 2(5): 417–428. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.05.002
Girardet H, 2020. People and nature in an urban world. One Earth, 2(2): 135–137. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.02.005
Gobattoni F, Pelorosso R, Lauro G et al., 2011. A procedure for mathematical analysis of landscape evolution and equilibrium scenarios assessment. Landscape and Urban Planning, 103(3–4): 289–302. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2011.08.011
Han R, Cui N X, Guo L, 2018. Monitoring the effects of the grain to green projects using landscape metrics: a case study in eastern Si-chuan, China. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 189: 052009. doi: https://doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/189/5/052009
Hasan S, Shi W Z, Zhu X L et al., 2019. Monitoring of land use/land cover and socioeconomic changes in south China over the last three decades using Landsat and Nighttime light data. Remote Sensing, 11(4): 1658. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11141658
Herold M, Scepan J, Clarke K C, 2002. The use of remote sensing and landscape metrics to describe structures and changes in urban land uses. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 34(8): 1443–1458. doi: https://doi.org/10.1068/a3496
Hu Y J, Kong X B, Zheng J et al., 2018. Urban expansion and farmland loss in Beijing during 1980–2015. Sustainability, 10(11): 3927. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su10113927
Hu Z W, Li Q G, Zou Q et al., 2016. A bilevel scale-sets model for hierarchical representation of large remote sensing images. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 54(12): 7366–7377. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2016.2600636
Jia M M, Wang Z M, Zhang Y Z et al., 2015. Landsat-based estimation of mangrove forest loss and restoration in Guangxi Province, China, influenced by human and natural factors. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 8(1): 311–323. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2014.2333527
Jordan N, Boody G, Broussard W et al., 2007. Environment: sustainable development of the agricultural bio-economy. Science, 316(5831): 1570–1571. doi: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1141700
Kline J D, Moses A, Azuma D et al., 2009. Evaluating satellite imagery-based land use data for describing forestland development in western Washington. Western Journal of Applied Forestry, 24(4): 214–222. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/wjaf/24.4.214
Lambin E F, Meyfroidt P, 2010. Land use transitions: socio-eco-logical feedback versus socio-economic change. Land Use Policy, 27(2): 108–118. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2009.09.003
Laurance W F, Vasconcelos H L, Lovejoy T E, 2000. Forest loss and fragmentation in the Amazon: implications for wildlife conservation. Oyx, 34(1): 39–45. doi: https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-3008.2000.00094.x
Lechner A M, Foody G M, Boyd D S, 2020. Applications in remote sensing to forest ecology and management. One Earth, 2(5): 405–412. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.05.001
Lele N, Joshi P K, Agrawal S P, 2008. Assessing forest fragmentation in northeastern region (NER) of India using landscape matrices. Ecological Indicators, 8(5): 657–663. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2007.10.002
Li M S, Mao L J, Zhou C G et al., 2010. Comparing forest fragmentation and its drivers in China and the USA with Globcover v2.2. Journal of Environmental Management, 91(12): 2572–2580. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.07.010
Li M S, Mao L J, Lu C et al., 2012. Temporal change in fragmentation in China’s primary forest ecoregions. Advanced Materials Research, 433–440: 1286–1296. doi: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.433-440.1286
Li X, Zhou Y, Asrar G R et al., 2017. Characterizing spatiotemporal dynamics in phenology of urban ecosystems based on Landsat data. Science of the Total Environment, 605–606: 721–734. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.06.245
Liang C, Jiang P H, Chen W et al., 2015. Farmland protection policies and rapid urbanization in China: a case study for Changzhou city. Land Use Policy, 48: 552–566. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.06.014
Lindquist E J, D’Annunzio R, 2016. Assessing global forest land-use change by object-based image analysis. Remote Sensing, 8(8): 678. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs8080678
Liu J Y, Zhang Z X, Xu X L et al., 2010. Spatial patterns and driving forces of land use change in china during the early 21st century. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 20(4): 483–494. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-010-0483-4
Liu Jiyuan, Zhang Qian, Hu Yunfeng, 2012. Regional differences of China’s urban expansion from late 20th to Early 21st Century based on remote sensing information. Chinese Geographical Science, 22: 1–14. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-012-0510-8
Liu J Y, Kuang W H, Zhang Z X et al., 2014. Spatiotemporal characteristics, patterns, and causes of land-use changes in China since the late 1980s. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 24(2): 195–210. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-014-1082-6
Liu T, Liu H, Qi Y J, 2015. Construction land expansion and cultivated land protection in urbanizing China: insights from national land surveys: 1996–2006. Habitat International, 46: 13–22. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.10.019
Liu Tingxiang, Zhang Shuwen, Tang Junmei et al., 2013. Comparison and analysis of agricultural and forest land changes in typical agricultural regions of northern mid-latitudes. Chinese Geographical Science, 23(2): 163–172. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-012-0576-3
Liu Y L, Feng Y H, Zhao Z et al., 2016a. Socioeconomic drivers of forest loss and fragmentation: a comparison between different land use planning schemes and policy implications. Land Use Policy, 54: 58–68. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.01.016
Liu Fang, Zhang Zengxiang, Shi Lifeng et al., 2016b. Urban expansion in China and its spatial-temporal differences over the past four decades. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 26(10): 1477–1496. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-016-1339-3
Liu Y S, Wang J Y, Long H L, 2010b. Analysis of arable land loss and its impact on rural sustainability in Southern Jiangsu Province of China. Journal of Environmental Management, 91(3): 646–653. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.09.028
Liu Y S, Fang F, Li Y H, 2014b. Key issues of land use in China and implications for policy making. Land Use Policy, 40: 6–12. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.03.013
Liu Z, Geng Y, Zhang P et al., 2014c. Emergy-based comparative analysis on industrial clusters: economic and technological development zone of Shenyang area, China. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 21(17): 10243–10253. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-2854-3
Lv H L, Yang Y B, Zhang D et al., 2019. Perimeter-area ratio effects of urbanization intensity on forest characteristics, landscape patterns and their associations in Harbin city, northeast China. Urban Ecosystems, 22(4): 631–642. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-019-00850-0
Madanian M, Soffianian A R, Koupai S S et al., 2018. Analyzing the effects of urban expansion on land surface temperature patterns by landscape metrics: a case study of Isfahan city, Iran. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 190(4): 189. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-018-6564-z
Mao D H, He X Y, Wang Z M et al., 2019. Diverse policies leading to contrasting impacts on land cover and ecosystem services in Northeast China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 240: 117961. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117961
McGarigal K, Marks B J, 1995. FRAGSTATS: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Quantifying Landscape Structure. Portland: USDA Forest Service, 122.
McGarigal K, 2002. Landscape pattern metrics. In: El-Shaarawi A H and Piegorsch W W (eds.). Encyclopedia of Environmetrics. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1135–1142.
McGarigal K, 2015. Fragstats Help. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.
Miller M D, 2012. The impacts of Atlanta’s urban sprawl on forest cover and fragmentation. Applied Geography, 34: 171–179. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2011.11.010
NBSC (National Bureau of Statistics of China), 2010. China Compendium of Statistics. Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese)
NBSC (National Bureau of Statistics of China), 2013. Chma Compendium of Statistics. Beijing: China Statistics Press. (in Chinese)
NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission of China), 2014. National New-type Urbanization Plan. Avaiable at: http://www.gov.en/zhengce/2014-03/16/content_2640075.htm (accessed on 16 March 2014)
Reddy C S, Sreelekshmi S, Jha C S et al., 2013. National assessment of forest fragmentation in India: landscape indices as measures of the effects of fragmentation and forest cover change. Ecological Engineering, 60: 453–164. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2013.09.064
Setiawan Y, Yoshino K, Prasetyo L B, 2014. Characterizing the dynamics change of vegetation cover on tropical forestlands using 250 m multi-temporal MODIS EVI. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 26: 132–144. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2013.06.008
Seymour F, 2020. Seeing the forests as well as the (Trillion) trees in corporate climate strategies. One Earth, 2(5): 390–393. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.05.006
Shen W J, Wu J G, Grimm N B et al., 2008. Effects of urbanization-induced environmental changes on ecosystem functioning in the phoenix metropolitan region, USA. Ecosystems, 11: 138–155. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-007-9085-0
Song D X, Huang C, Sexton J O et al., 2014. Size and frequency of forest loss and gain in China during 2000–2005. In: American Geo-physical Union, Fall Meeting 2014. San Francisco: AGU.
Tao R, Su F B, Liu M X et al., 2010. Land leasing and local public finance in China’s regional development: evidence from prefecture-level cities. Urban Studies, 47(10): 2217–2236. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098009357961
Trac C J, Schmidt A H, Harrell S et al., 2013. Environmental reviews and case studies: is the returning farmland to forest program a success? three case studies from Sichuan. Environmental Practice, 15(3): 350–366. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1466046613000355
Turner II B L, Lambin E F, Reenberg A, 2007. The emergence of land change science for global environmental change and sustainability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(52): 20666–20671. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0704119104
Van Den Hoek J, Ozdogan M, Burnicki A et al., 2014. Evaluating forest policy implementation effectiveness with a cross-scale remote sensing analysis in a priority conservation area of Southwest China. Applied Geography, 47: 177–189. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2013.12.010
Wahyudi A, Liu Y, Corcoran J, 2018. Combining landsat and landscape metrics to analyse large-scale urban land cover change: a case study in the Jakarta Metropolitan Area. Journal of Spatial Science, 64(3): 515–534. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14498596.2018.1443849
World Bank, 2015. World bank database. http://data.worldbank.org. Cited 13 May 2015.
Wu Z, Dai E, Wu Z F et al., 2019. Future forest dynamics under climate change, land use change, and harvest in subtropical forests in southern China. Landscape Ecology, 34(4): 843–863. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00809-8
Xie H L, Kung C C, Zhao Y L, 2012. Spatial disparities of regional forest land change based on ESDA and GIS at the county level in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area. Frontiers of Earth Science, 6(4): 445–452. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-012-0338-7
Xie H L, He Y F, Zhang N et al., 2017. Spatiotemporal changes and fragmentation of forest land in Jiangxi province, China. Journal of Forest Economics, 29(1): 4–13. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfe.2017.08.004
Xu G L, Huang X J, Zhong T Y et al., 2015. Assessment on the effect of city arable land protection under the implementation of China’s national general land use plan (2006–2020). Habitat International, 49: 466–473. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.06.017
Yang C, Wu G F, Ding K et al., 2017b. Improving land use/land cover classification by integrating pixel unmixing and decision tree methods. Remote Sensing, 9(12): 1222. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9121222
Yang C, Li Q Q, Hu Z W et al., 2019a. Spatiotemporal evolution of urban agglomerations in four major bay areas of US, China and Japan from 1987 to 2017: Evidence from remote sensing images. Science of the Total Environment, 671: 232–247. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.03.154
Yang C, Wu G F, Chen J Y et al., 2019b. Simulating and forecasting spatio-temporal characteristic of land-use/cover change with numerical model and remote sensing: a case study in Fuxian Lake Basin, China. European Journal of Remote Sensing, 52(1): 374–384. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/22797254.2019.1611387
Xu G, Zhou Z, Jiao L et al., 2020. Compact urban form and expansion pattern slow down the decline in urban densities: a global perspective. Land Use Policy, 94: 104563. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104563
Yang C, Zhang C C, Li Q Q et al., 2020. Rapid urbanization and policy variation greatly drive ecological quality evolution in Guang-dong-Hong Kong-Macau greater bay area of China: a remote sensing perspective. Ecological Indicators, 115: 106373. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106373
Yang J, Sun J, Ge Q S et al., 2017a. Assessing the impacts of urbanization-associated green space on urban land surface temperature: a case study of Dalian, China. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 22: 1–10. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2017.01.002
Yu Sisi, Sun Zhongchang, Guo Huadong et al., 2017. Monitoring and analyzing the spatial dynamics and patterns of megacities along the maritime Silk Road. Journal of Remote Sensing, 21(2): 169–181. (in Chinese)
Yu Z W, Yao Y W, Yang G Y et al., 2019. Strong contribution of rapid urbanization and urban agglomeration development to regional thermal environment dynamics and evolution. Forest Ecology and Management, 446: 214–225. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2019.05.046
Zengin H, Değermenci A S, Bettinger P, 2018. Analysis of temporal changes in land cover and landscape metrics of a managed forest in the west black sea region of northern Turkey: 1970–2010. Journal of Forestry Research, 29: 139–150. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-017-0423-6
Zhang J, Zhou Y K, LI R Q et al., 2010. Accuracy assessments and uncertainty analysis of spatially explicit modeling for land use/cover change and urbanization: a case in Beijing metropolitan area. Science China Earth Science, 53: 173–180. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-009-0199-4
Zhang L, Weng Q H, 2016. Assessment of urban growth in the Pearl River Delta, China, using time series Landsat imagery. In: Weng Q H (ed). Remote Sensing for Sustainability. London: CRC Press.
Zhang Z X, Wen Q K, Liu F et al., 2016. Urban expansion in china and its effect on cultivated land before and after initiating “reform and open policy. Science China Earth Sciences, 59(10): 1930–1945. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-015-0160-2
Zhong T Y, Mitchell B, Huang X J, 2014. Success or failure: evaluating the implementation of China’s national general land use plan (1997–2010). Habitat International, 44: 93–101. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.05.003
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Additional information
Foundation item
Under the auspices of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41890854), Basic Research Program of Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee (No. JCYJ20180507182022554), National Key R & D Program of China (No. 2017YFC0506200), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 7181101150), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41901248), Shenzhen Future Industry Development Funding Program (No. 201507211219247860)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yang, C., Liu, H., Li, Q. et al. Rapid Urbanization Induced Extensive Forest Loss to Urban Land in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 31, 93–108 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-021-1177-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-021-1177-9