Monitoring of Urban Expansion and Economic Development Using Remote Sensing Data of Zhejiang Province

Urban expansion was very rapid with the economic development in Zhejiang Province in recent years. It was important to obtain timely the area and speed data of urban expansion for drafting the sustainable development stratagem of society.However,it was difficult to investigate timely the area and speed of urban expansion for many traditional methods.In the paper,the satellite images at different times were applied to investigate the urban expansion process of cities in Zhejiang Province from 1998 to 2001.The areas of cities of Zhejiang in 1998 and 2001 were 977.85km2 and 1499.06km2 respectively,and there was a mean anual increase of 15.31%.On the basis of the urban expansion data using remote sensing, combined with socio-economic data,driving forces to urban expansion were analyzed.