The economic growth rate of China in the following 10 years.

<p>The economic growth rate of China in the following 10 years.</p

Changing and Differentiated Urban Landscape in China: Spatiotemporal Patterns and Driving Forces

Urban landscape spatiotemporal change patterns and their driving mechanisms in China are poorly understood at the national level. Here we used remote sensing data, landscape metrics, and a spatial econometric model to characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of urban landscape change and investigate its driving forces in China between 1990 and 2005. The results showed that the urban landscape pattern has experienced drastic changes over the past 15 years. Total urban area has expanded approximately 1.61 times, with a 2.98% annual urban-growth rate. Compared to previous single-city studies, although urban areas are expanding rapidly, the overall fragmentation of the urban landscape is decreasing and is more irregular and complex at the national level. We also found a stair-stepping, urban-landscape changing pattern among eastern, central, and western counties. In addition, administrative level, urban size, and hierarchy have effects on the urban landscape pattern. We also found that a combination of landscape metrics can be used to supplement our understanding of the pattern of urbanization. The changes in these metrics are correlated with geographical indicators, socioeconomic factors, infrastructure variables, administrative level factors, policy factors, and historical factors. Our results indicate that the top priority should be strengthening the management of urban planning. A compact and congregate urban landscape may be a good choice of pattern for urban development in China

Summary statistics of the variables.

<p>Summary statistics of the variables.</p

The distributions of the variables in box-chart form, for China’s 30 provinces, 1995–2011.

<p>The distributions of the variables in box-chart form, for China’s 30 provinces, 1995–2011.</p

CO2 emissions coefficients.

<p>Sources: IPCC (2006)</p><p>CO2 emissions coefficients.</p

The urbanization of China in the following 10 years.

<p>The urbanization of China in the following 10 years.</p

Moran scatter plot of CO₂ emissions for selected years.

<p>HH means high values surrounded by high values; LH means low values surrounding by high values; LL means low values surrounded by low values; HL means high values surrounded by low values.</p

Compared with other studies estimating China’s CO₂ emissions.

<p>Note: the forecasting results taken from Du et al. (2012) are estimated under a business-as-usual scenario. The forecasting results in this study are estimated under Scenario BTU.</p><p>Compared with other studies estimating China’s CO₂ emissions.</p

The future developing scenarios of China and the descriptions.

<p>Note: “Low” denotes the low scenario, “Middle” denotes the middle scenario, and “High” denotes the high scenario.</p><p>The future developing scenarios of China and the descriptions.</p

The spatial distributions of coefficients of the independent variables for China’s 30 provinces, 1995–2011.

<p>Coef. (lnP, lnA, lnT, lnU) denote the coefficients of lnP, lnA, lnT, and lnU.</p