Evaluation of urban sprawl and urban landscape pattern in a rapid developing region

Urban sprawl is a worldwide phenomenon especially in fast developing regions of China which is a typical representative. The study on the spatiotemporal characteristics of urban sprawl and urban pattern is useful for land sustainable management and urban land planning. This research explores the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban sprawl in the context of a rapid urbanization process in a booming economic region of southern China from 1979 to 2005. Three urban sprawl types are distinguished based on analyzing overlaid urban area maps of each two adjacent study years which originates from the interpretation of remote sensed images and the vector land use maps. The landscape metrics are used to analyze the spatiotemporal pattern of urban sprawl for each study period. The study results show that urban areas have expanded dramatically, and the spatiotemporal landscape pattern configured by three sprawl types changed obviously.