A Spatiotemporal Analysis of the Effects of Urbanization’s Socio-Economic Factors on Landscape Patterns Considering Operational Scales

Abstract

Landscape patterns are significantly affected during the urbanization process. Identifying the spatiotemporal impacts of urbanization’s socio-economic factors on landscape patterns is very important and can provide scientific evidence to support urban ecological management and guide managers to establish appropriate sustainability policies. This article applies multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) to reveal the relationships between landscape patterns and the socio-economic factors of urbanization in Shenzhen, China, from 2000 to 2015, in five-year intervals. MGWR is a powerful extension of geographically weighted regression (GWR) that can not only reveal spatial heterogeneity patterns but also measure the operational scale of covariates. The empirical results indicate that MGWR is superior to GWR. Furthermore, the changes in operational scale represented by the spatial bandwidth of MGWR in different years reflect temporal changes in the spatial relationships of given factors, which is significant information for urban studies. These multiscale relationships between landscape patterns and the socio-economic factors of urbanization, revealed via MGWR, are useful for strategic planning around urban dynamic development and land resource and ecological landscape management. The results can provide additional insight into landscape and urbanization studies from a multiscale perspective, which is important for local, regional, and global urban planning.

Multi-Scale Geographically Weighted Regression Modeling of Urban and Rural Construction Land Fragmentation–A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta Region

“…The significant impact range was small and concentrated in the southwestern mountainous hilly area; the differences in the impact of GPUA were not significant between the different regions. Previous studies have shown that human activities have a complex role in landscape fragmentation [51]. These findings suggest that in underdeveloped areas, human economic activities are one of the causes of landscape fragmentation.…”

“…Intercept distances may help to identify other spatial determinants. Previous evidence indicates that factors such as distance from large cities and urbanization rates may influence the degree of landscape fragmentation [15,51]. Thus, it will be necessary to consider these determinants in future multi-scale analyses.…”

“…Understanding bandwidth uncertainty provides important insights into the operational scales of different processes, especially when comparing bandwidths specific to covariates. [40], using an MGWR model, investigates the relationship between landscape patterns and socio-economic factors in the urbanization process of Shenzhen from 2000 to 2015. The study showed that MGWR is a powerful extension of GWR, which not only reveals spatial heterogeneity but also measures the scale of operation of covariates.…”

Uncovering Demographic Trends and Recent Urban Expansion in Metropolitan Regions: A Paradigmatic Case Study

“…At the same time, demographic structures (e.g., by age) have different impacts on urban growth, since population aging strengthens concentration tendencies, and population growth acts as a dispersion force [61][62][63][64]. This assumption allows a refined assessment of agglomeration forces under multiple demographic scenarios, considering also other disciplinary dimensions and operational scales of analysis and planning, e.g., landscape [65]. Further approaches have been proposed to evaluate the contribution of demographic behaviors to natural population growth and, thus, metropolitan expansion [38].…”

Coupling Analysis of the Thermal Landscape and Environmental Carrying Capacity of Urban Expansion in Beijing (China) over the Past 35 Years

“…Human activities strongly affect the natural conditions, hydrological conditions, meteorological characteristics, surface structure, flora, and fauna of the urban landscape [30][31][32][33]. The characteristics of the urban landscape reflect the level of socio-economic development, as well as historical and cultural characteristics [34,35]. In urban landscapes, the structure of the main ingredients is artificial and modified as a basic pattern of the landscape.…”