Spatial trend simulation of regional urbanization level: A case study of the middle part of Liaoning province

The Middle Part of Liaoning province with the fastest developing rate in northeast China was selected as study area, and statistical method and geographic information systems (GIS) technique were used synthetically to simulate regional urbanization level, so that the simulation method could provide scientific theoretics and methods reference for reasonable economy distribution and urbanization sustainable development in the region and others. Firstly, “AHP-Information entropy-Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation” model was used to evaluate regional urbanization level basing on statistic data with county as evaluating cell. Secondly, on base of “downscale” theory, the spatial scale of regional urbanization level for counties were transformed with methods including regression analyse, population assignity model and spatial interpolation method, so as to simulate the spatial direction and trend of regional urbanization level. Finally, the simulation results were validated. Results shows that, the spatial trend simulation of regional urbanization level in the cell of county can describe the regional urbanization level in the study area, the whole average simulation error and accuracy are 0.086 and 82.4%, respectively, and the reality and the simulation results of regional urbanization level in every county are basically accordant. The simulation result can show the interior difference of regional urbanization level in county.