Abstract:

Based on Landsat TM, ETM+, MSS data, we mapped the urban lands in the Wuhan urban agglomeration in 1980-1990, 1990-2000 and 2000-2010 with the application of remote sensing and GIS technology. The paper investigated the dynamic urban expansion pattern, spatial form evolution of urban land and its driving factors during the study period, using the landscape expansion index, lacunarity index and fractal correlation dimension. We found that spatial expansion patterns in the Wuhan urban agglomeration presented different characteristics during different stages. In the first stage, the basic pattern was characterized by edgeexpansion and outlying expansion, while in the second and third stages the pattern was dominated by edgeexpansion. The spatial distribution of urban lands exhibited significant fluctuation during the different periods. In detail, during the first decade 1990-2000, the newly increased urban lands followed a dispersed expansion pattern and the spatial distribution in relation to urban land was characterized by homogenization. In the second decade, urban land expansion decelerated significantly and urban landuse expansion intensified along isolated central cities. During the third stage, urban land expansion showed a trend of highprimacy and concentration; the spatial differences of urban land distribution were enhanced significantly between Wuhan and its periphery areas. Overall, Wuhan urban agglomeration has experienced an even dispersed expansion in 1980-1990, a slow centrifugal scattered expansion in 1990-2000, and a rapid aggregated highlyprimate expansion in 2000-2010, respectively. These spatiotemporal differences were found to be closely related to foreign and domestic development environment, national development strategy, urbanization guidelines and land management policies. However, it is worth noting that the dominant driving factors varied between different decades studied