Journal of Coastal Research
00
0
000–000
Coconut Creek, Florida
Month 0000
Land-Cover Reconstruction and Change Analysis Using
Multisource Remotely Sensed Imageries in Zhoushan
Islands since 1970
Jianyu Chen†, Delu Pan†, Zhihua Mao†, Ninghua Chen‡, and Jianhua Zhao§, and
Mingliang Liu††
†
State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean
Environment Dynamics
Second Institute of Oceanography
State Oceanic Administration
Hangzhou 310012
China
[email protected]
‡
Department of Earth Sciences
Zhejiang University
Hangzhou 310027
China
§
††
National Marine & Environment Monitor
Center
State Oceanic Administration
Dalian 116023, China
Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164, U.S.A.
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
Chen, J.; Pan, D.; Mao, Z.; Chen, N.; Zhao, J., and Liu, M., 0000. Land-cover reconstruction and change analysis using
multisource remotely sensed imageries in Zhoushan Islands since 1970. Journal of Coastal Research, 00(0), 000–000.
Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.
Islands are hotspot areas with intensive interactions between land and ocean, and they are also the most vulnerable
places to human activities and environmental change. As the frontier zone of oceanic economic development, coastal
regions of China have undergone enhanced changes in land-cover change during recent decades. This study was
conducted to investigate how land cover in Zhoushan Island and its surrounding islands, which are typical islands of
China, has changed since the economic reform by using multisource remotely sensed imageries. The earliest land cover
in 1970, 1976, and 1980 was interpreted and digitalized from CORONA and KH-9 photographs, respectively. For the
period of 19862000, TM (Thematic Mapper) and ETM (Enhanced Thematic Mapper) imageries were classified to build
land-cover maps with the supervised classification method. The most recent land-cover data in 2006 and 2011 were
generated by inventory land-use vector map and SPOT5 imageries. The reconstructed land-cover time series indicate
that Zhoushan Islands have involved substantial land-cover change since 1970. The arable land has changed into builtup types, mainly, and rate of change reached its peak in 2000, while the spatial distribution of transition was not
uniform. Nevertheless, water bodies and woodlands have been well preserved during the past 40 years. During the
urbanization process, the tidal zone of these islands shrank sharply, and some of them turned to built-up land-cover
directly.
ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Land cover, reconstruction, time series, island, remote sensing, Zhoushan Islands.
INTRODUCTION
Island areas have special relief and possess spatial advantages where land and ocean interact. They are the most
vulnerable places to human activities and environmental
change because of their small area and isolation from
mainland. Therefore, the land-use and land-cover changes
(LULCCs) in islands, which are normally accompanied by
urbanization and construction of ports and harbors, can
DOI: 10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-13-00027.1 received 31 January 2013;
accepted in revision 31 May 2013; corrected proofs received 24 July
2013.
Published Pre-print online 12 August 2013.
Ó Coastal Education & Research Foundation 2013
decrease biodiversity (Alessandra, Luigi, and Luigi, 2007;
Tan et al., 2010), degrade functions of coastal wetlands (Elijah
and Stephen, 1997), and shrink the tidal zone (Kevin and
Hesham, 1999), and so on. Generally, with the strengthening of
human impact on nature, the Earth’s land surface is experiencing profound change. LULCCs alter the terrestrial biogeochemical cycles and regional climate systems (Lambin and
Ehrlich, 1997; Schulz et al., 2010; Turner, Skole, and Sanderson, 1995). With the repetitive observation capacity of
satellites, remotely sensed imageries are widely used to
reconstruct historical LULCC data at local, regional, and
global scales (Houet et al., 2010; Liu. Liu, and Zhuang, 2003;
Rogan and Chen, 2004; Turner, 1990). In particular, for coastal
0
Chen et al.
Heilig, 1997; Hubacek and Sun, 2001; Liu, Liu, and Tian,
2005; Verburg, Veldkamp, and Fresco, 1999) and case
studies in quickly developed coastal areas (Ding et al.,
2007; Fan, Wang, and Wang, 2008; Kaufmann and Seto,
2001; Li and Yeh, 2004; Seto and Woodcock, 2002; Weng,
2002; Yeh and Li, 1999; Yue, Chen, and Xu, 2002) reveal
the extensive influences of human on land cover across
China since the economic reform that started in 1978.
Generally, the coastal regions developed faster than inland
regions because of their advantages in location, policy, and
eco-environment. Therefore, reconstructing historical land
use and land cover in these coastal regions could enhance
our understandings on how economic development and
policies affect the land-cover patterns, which in turn
support management of these vulnerable regions in a
sustainable way. Due to limitations on coarse resolutions
and time periods of remotely sensed data for regional- and
national-scale land-cover change studies, to our knowledge,
no previous work exists for detecting long-term historical
change with high-resolution spatial details on land-cover
changes over typical islands of China.
METHODS
Research Area
Figure 1. Location of the research area. (Color for this figure is available in
the online version of this paper.)
regions, high-resolution remotely sensed imageries have been
used to detect erosion of seashore (e.g., Frihy, Nasr, and
Hattab, 1994), study steepland gullies (Marden et al., 2012),
extract the water line (e.g., Ryu, Won, and Min, 2002), monitor
coastal urban sprawl (Hepcan et al., 2013), and reconstruct
historical delta evolution processes and coastal wetland
dynamics (e.g., Schmidt and Skidmore, 2003; Weng, 2001). By
using high-resolution data, numerous change detection methods have been proposed in land-use and land-cover change
analysis (Hégarat-Mascle and Seltz, 2004; Smits and Annoni,
2000). Furthermore, the multitemporal information derived
from remotely sensed images allows characterization of main
land-cover types on regional scales (Borak, Lambin, and
Strahler, 2000; Hégarat-Mascle, Ottlé, and Guérin, 2005).
Land-use and land-cover trajectories are the temporal sequence of LULC classes at the pixel level that are described
through classified images assembled in a time series (Andrew,
Joseph, and Philip, 2006; Carlos, 2008).
China, one of the fastest growing and developing
countries, has been experiencing rapid urban growth since
the end of 1970s (Longley, 2002). Both national-scale (e.g.,
The study area is located in the Zhoushan Archipelago
and is situated in the middle section of the coastline in
China (Fig. 1). It consists of more than 50 islands, and five
of them are larger than 10 km2 (Table 1). The largest
island, Zhoushan Island, is the center of port, travel, and
fishing grounds in this region. Known as the fishing capital
of China, Zhoushan Island is the biggest base of producing,
processing, and selling aquatic products in China.
The Zhoushan Islands (Fig. 2) belong to hilly landforms,
and the main types of coastline are rocky coast (75.8%) and
man-made coast (21.6%). The Zhoushan Archipelago is
located at what is called the ‘‘Min-Zhe’’ uplift zone of the
East China Sea. The tectonic evolution of the Zhoushan
Archipelago is associated with the folding system of
southeastern China. There are widespread andesitic-granitic igneous rocks of Mesozoic age, over which lie semiconsolidated to unconsolidated terrigenous sediments, up to
several hundred meters thick, of Cenozoic age (Wang,
1995). The bedrock outcrops that form the islands lie along
a ridge that was uplifted during the Miocene as the FukienReinan massif (Wageman, Hilde, and Emery, 1970).
The soil in Zhoushan Islands belongs to typical classes
that are widely distributed in the Zhejiang coastal area
(Zhang and Yang, 1998). The major soil of the tidal flat is
coastal solonchak. The lower coastal plain area consists of
coastal solonchak, fluvo-aquic solonchak, gray fluvo-aquic
soils, and percogenic paddy soils. In water net plain area,
hydromorphic paddy soils, gleyed paddy soil, and degleyfication paddy soil are typical. Influenced by the mountain
vertical climate gradients, the hilly upland of these islands
have a distribution of red soil, red-yellow soil, and yellow
soil sequentially from the lower to the upper zones.
The Zhoushan Archipelago has been listed as the coastal
economic opening area and a pioneering city in the Yangtze
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 00, No. 0, 0000
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Table 1. Main islands and their area (km2).
Island
Total Area
Land Area
Tidal Zone
Zhoushan Island
Cezi Island
Jintand Island
Xiushan Island
Changbai Island
502.65
14.97
82.11
26.33
14.16
476.17
14.2
77.35
22.88
11.1
26.48
0.77
4.76
3.45
3.06
Figure 2. The Environmental Satellite imagery of Zhoushan Islands. (Color for this figure is available in the online version of this paper.)
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 00, No. 0, 0000
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Table 2. Satellite data used in research.
Sensor
Data
Acquired Date
Band Size
Resolution (m)
CORONA
KH-9 Hexagon
KH-9 Hexagon
TM
TM
TM
ETM
SPOT5
SPOT5
DS1109-2183DA083-6
DZB1211-500140L003001
DZB1216-500341L003001
IMG
IMG
IMG
TIFF
TIFF
TIFF
1970-03-15
1976-01-12
1980-09-12
1986-05-31
1990-06-11
1995-08-12
2000-06-14
2006-03-26
2011-04-20
1
1
1
7
7
7
7
1þ4
1þ4
1.83
7
7
30
30
30
15þ30
5þ10
5þ10
Delta area since 1988. In 1997, the municipal government
initialized a Peninsula Project to build a cross-sea bridge
between Zhoushan and Ningbo city for improving transportation over this area. As a rare deep-water port in Asia,
Zhoushan Port has been involved in an unprecedented
expansion during the last decade in the context of China’s
jump in world trade. Recently, with extension of many deep
navigational waterways, this region has great potential to
continue its growth in economics and port infrastructures
under the trend of globalization and China’s growing world
trade.
Data Sets
The data set used here includes ground-based investigation, airborne photographs, and satellite imageries (see
Table 2). The differential global positioning system (DGPS)
data, survey photos, the land-cover map, and orthorectified
SPOT5 (the Satellite pour l’Observation de la Terre 5)
panchromatic and multispectral imageries (year 2006)
came from the Chinese Offshore Investigation and Assessment Project (COIAP). The land-cover map has been
updated by SPOT5 imageries and other surveyed data in
COIAP. The aerial data used for verification include one
panchromatic photograph (year 1990) and color photograph
(year 2000), both of which were obtained from the local
surveying and mapping institute. For reconstructing the
historical land cover of the Zhoushan Islands, the satellite
imageries were obtained from different platforms and
sensors, including CORONA, KH-9 Hexagon, Landsat TM
(Thematic Mapper), ETM (Enhanced Thematic Mapper),
and SPOT5.
CORONA photographs have advantages in spatial coverage, spatial resolution, and cost. The CORONA satellite
took stereo photos using filmstrips of 7 3 90 cm by a
panoramic camera with panchromatic channel (Altmaier
and Kany, 2002; Hamandawana, Eckardt, and Ringrose,
2007; Wheelon, 1995). CORONA photographs were acquired by the United States between 1959 and 1972.
Keyhole (KH) satellite systems KH-9 acquired photographs
of Earth’s surface from 1973 to 1980 with a telescopic
camera system and transported the exposed film through
the use of recovery capsules. Through comparisons with
land-use survey and SPOT5 images, the fairly dated
CORONA images and KH-9 photographs could provide
historical land-cover information. Landsat TM and ETMþ
images taken in 1986, 1990, 1995, and 2000 were classified
by a restricted supervised classification method in conjunction with visual interpretation to detect LULCCs in the
study area.
Methodology
The SPOT5 panchromatic imagery of 2006 has 5 m
resolution, and a common Transverse Mercator projection
was used as reference imagery. The CORONA and KH-9
photographs, TM/ETM imageries, and other SPOT5 data
were georegistered to reference imagery. The nearest
neighbor resampling technique was used to resample the
images into a pixel size of 30 m by 30 m for Landsat
images, and 5 m by 5 m for SPOT5 multispectral images,
CORONA data, and KH-9 photographs.
The inventory land-use vector map came from the local
land-use surveying and mapping institute, and the stan-
Table 3. The definition of land-cover types.
No.
Land-Cover Type
1
2
Woodland
Dryland
3
Paddy land
4
Urban built-up
5
6
7
8
9
Rural settlement
Water body
Aquaculture
Brine pan
Tidal zone
Descriptions (Land-Use Type)
Land growing trees including arbor, shrub, bamboo, and for forestry use.
Cropland for cultivation without water supply and irrigating facilities; cropland that has water supply and
irrigation facilities and planting dry farming crops; cropland planting vegetables; fallow land.
Cropland that has enough water supply and irrigation facilities for planting paddy rice, lotus, etc., including
rotation land for paddy rice and dry farming crops.
Lands used for urban use and lands used for factories, quarries, mining, oil-field slattern outside cities, and lands
for special uses such as transportation and airport.
Lands used for settlements in villages.
Streams and rivers, lakes, reservoirs, and ponds.
Aquaculture area, farm pond.
Brine pan and salt marsh.
Tidal mud flat and reed bed, beach.
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 00, No. 0, 0000
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Figure 3. The historical land-cover time series in Zhoushan Islands. All of these imageries had the same pixel size, 1705 3 1057.
dard of land-use classification is China’s land-use categories, which are hierarchically organized in eight types and
46 subtypes (Zhang et al., 2007). Considering the coarse
resolution of satellite image (30 m) and the one channel of
CORONA and KH-9 photographs, the inventory land-cover
vector map was produced from the inventory land-use
vector map. We aggregated inventory land-use data into
nine types: woodland, dryland, paddy land, urban or builtup, rural settlements, water body, aquaculture, brine pan,
and tidal zone (Table 3). The arable area has two subtypes:
the dryland and paddy land. The land-cover classification
scheme referred to the standard used in COIAP, which has
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Table 4. The data set used for validation
Sensor
Data
Acquisition
Date
Spectral and Spatial
Resolution
Aerial data 1a
December 1990
Aerial data 2a
October 2002
One panchromatic band
with1 m spatial resolution for
the photograph and scale of
1:10,000 for corresponding
digital raster graph (DRG).
Three visible bands
(blue, green, and red) with
1 m spatial resolution.
a
Aerial data 1: Aerial photograph and digital raster graph (DRG). Aerial
data 2: Aerial orthophotographs.
a few differences compared to recent research (Teodoro et
al., 2011). The updated land-cover map was utilized as the
reference data for classification of TM/ETMþ data.
Three steps were involved to generate historical landcover information from these satellite and supplemental
data sets. Firstly, the updated land cover was converted to
raster data with a resolution of 30 m directly and used as
land-cover raster for the year 2006. Secondly, one CORONA and two KH-9 photographs, and SPOT5 imageries of
the year 2011 were interpreted and digitalized through
visual interpretation and the commercial GIS software,
respectively. These interpretations were implemented by
comparing with SPOT5 imagery of year 2006 and the
inventory land-cover map. The land-cover vector maps
obtained from CORONA data, KH-9 photographs, and
SPOT5 of year 2011 were converted to raster format and
resampled to 30 m resolution. Finally, the following time
series of land cover were acquired from the restricted
supervised classification results of TM/ETM images for the
period from 1986 to 2000.
Three Landsat TM and one ETM satellite images were
applied for land-cover classification. The maximum likelihood classification method was used to classify land cover
in these four images. Both the inventory land-cover vectors
of 1980 and 2006 were used to assist in the classification of
TM/ETM imageries. These two vectors were used for
change detection firstly. The unchanged areas in the
inventory land-cover map over 1980–2006 were chosen as
training areas for supervised classification. The identification of water body, aquaculture, and brine pan was
performed in postclassification procedure. The classification
accuracy of the resultant maps was assessed with another
Figure 4. The shift of different land-cover types in Zhoushan Islands during
1970–2011. (Color for this figure is available in the online version of this
paper.)
unchanged region from inventory land-cover maps and
additional validation by aerial photographs.
Through these data processing and classifications, we
generated the long-term history of land covers during
1970–2011 (see Fig. 3). The aerial photographs of 1989 and
2002 (Table 4) were used to evaluate land cover derived
from remote sensing images of 1990 and 2000, respectively.
The accuracy demand of COIAP for the match of land cover
map and SPOT5 data of year 2006 was better than 95%.
The geometric rectification accuracies of CORONA data,
KH-9 photographs, and SPOT5 imageries (year 2011) are
considered higher than 30 m. All TM/ETM images were
georeferenced with geometric errors of less than one pixel.
The overall accuracies of classification validated using
aerial photographs are 86.6% in 1990 and 86.0% in 2000,
and kappa coefficients are 0.85 and 0.84, respectively.
RESULTS
In Zhoushan Islands, large areas of high-quality arable
land were lost due to urban sprawl (Table 5). In the past 40
years, the lost arable land is about 30.17 km2. The other
major source of the new built-up area is tidal flat, which is
about 29.17 km2. Meanwhile, the tidal flat has contributed
around 11.55 km2 to the increase of aquaculture area.
According to the changing rate and direction of land cover,
there are four major types of change during 1970–2011
(Fig. 4). (1) Type 1, minor change. Woodland belongs to this
Table 5. The transformation of land use from 1970 to 2011 (km2).
Woodland
Dryland
Paddy land
Water body
Built-up
Settlement
Aquaculture
Brine pan
Tidal flat
Woodland
Dryland
Paddy Land
Water Body
Built-Up
Settlement
Aquaculture
Brine Pan
Tidal Flat
338.76
4.39
2.65
0.04
0.06
0.10
0.14
0
1.45
4.62
61.18
3.93
0.08
0.02
0.18
0
0
2.44
0.19
4.49
87.09
0.51
0.02
0.15
0
0
1.14
0.15
2.41
0.84
11.77
0
0
0.03
0.08
1.64
2.03
8.48
21.69
0.78
15.23
0.11
0.50
3.97
29.17
0.54
2.60
3.54
0.04
0
30.25
0
0.05
1.58
0.04
3.88
2.45
0.02
0
0
0.36
0.19
11.55
0
0
0
0.02
0
0
0.02
1.97
4.55
0.19
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
30.14
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Table 6. Comparison with Yangtze Delta and Zhejiang (ZJ) coastal area (km2).
Period
Paddy Land
Dryland
Woodland
Pasture
Built-Up
None Used
Water Body
Tidal Zone
Yangtze Delta (1995–2000)
ZJ coastal area (1985–1993)
ZJ coastal area (1993–2001)
129,519
76,875
80,408
108,414
27,330
92,988
29,195
5073
38,137
26,043
267,818
88,472
122,538
8568
105
1272
27,783
8023
5758
2739
5691
Yangtze Delta: Liu et al. (2003); ZJ coastal area: Ding et al. (2007).
type. Its area stayed around 338.76 km2 during the study
period, and its change was in the 1% range. (2) Type 2, the
decrease type. The tidal zone dominates this type. Its area
decreased by 52.9%, or 45 km2 from 1970 to 2006. The
average annual loss of tidal zone was about 0.18 km2 in
past 40 years. In particular, the largest loss occurred in
periods of 1970–-1976 and 2000–2006 by 2.57 km2 and 1.3
km2 per year, respectively. (3) Type 3, the increase type.
This type included urban or built-up areas, rural settlement, water bodies, and aquaculture. The area of aquaculture kept increasing from 1.33 km2 in 1970 to 11.07 km2 in
2006. The surface area of water bodies increased by 31.8%,
or 4.23 km2 during 1970–2006. At the same time, its
percentage was up from 1.89% to 2.49%. Particularly
during recent period of 2000–2006, the expansion of water
bodies was 0.416 km2 per year. Meanwhile, the area of
build-up increased by 309.4%, or 47.4 km2 from 1970 to
2006. (4) Type 4, up-down type. This type of change
includes dryland and paddy land, and brine pan. The total
arable area, including paddy land and dryland, had an
increase in early period and a decrease in later time. It
peaked at 30.77 km2 in 1980s and fell to 24.12 km2 in 2006.
The proportion of dryland was still increasing before 1995.
The fluctuation of arable land area represents the competition of land resources between agriculture and industry
development during different time periods: In the early
period, the agricultural activities dominated; then industry
development dominated.
DISCUSSION
their isolation from the mainland. The woodland and the
water body were well preserved in these islands, along with
the large economical development. The total area of tidal
zone estimated increased in coastal areas of Zhejiang
province by comparison of the land cover during 1993–
2001 and during 1985–1993, while in Zhoushan Islands,
the tidal zone, as well as aquaculture and brine pan,
substantially decreased during this period. The expansion
of Zhoushan port and aquaculture land during the study
period was the major driving force for the decreasing tidal
zone in these islands.
In the period of 1980–2010, the population increased
slowly in the first two decades, while it decreased in the
last decade. However, the nonagricultural population
increased 2.4 times. Meanwhile, the gross domestic product
increased by 26 times, and port capacity increased by 56
times in the last decade (Table 7). The substantial landcover change in Zhoushan Islands is mainly driven by new
economic and land-use policy.
Land-Cover Change during Different Time Periods
Expansion of urban built-up area is the primary character of land-cover change in the Zhoushan Islands. Over the
last 40 years, urban built-up area increased by 4 times in
last 40 years, and over 90% of new expansions came from
originally arable land and tidal zone (Fig. 4), and the
expansion of urban built-up area has accelerated since the
1980s (Fig. 5). Before 1980, the average annual growth rate
of urban built-up area was 2–3%. It increased 6–10%
during 1980–2000, and increased to 25% since then. The
area of rural settlements had a constant increase by about
Land-Cover Change Trend Analysis
The trend of land-cover change in the Zhoushan Islands
showed a similar pattern as in the Yangtze Delta and
Zhejiang coastal area (see Table 6), which shows decreasing
arable land area and increasing urban built-up area (Ding
et al., 2007; Liu, Zhan, and Deng, 2005). However, there
are specialties in land-cover change in islands because of
Table 7. The statistics of economic development and society from 1980.
1980 1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
935
970
983
984
967
968
Population (103) 889
Nonagriculture
152
185
207
232
283
349
365
population (103)
Gross domestic
490 1309 2457
7438 12,157 28,225
64,432
product
(million Yuan)
Salt production
84.6 195.7 253.3
274.5
262.1
231.5
78.7
(kilotons)
Port capacity
2810 10,050 31,890 90,520 158,620
(kilotons)
Figure 5. The rates of land-cover change (per year) over different time
periods in Zhoushan Islands during 1970–2011. (Color for this figure is
available in the online version of this paper.)
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 00, No. 0, 0000
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Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Land-Cover
Change
Figure 6. The mean elevation of built-up area and dryland and their
changes. (Color for this figure is available in the online version of this paper.)
0.5% per year during 1970–2006. After the year 2000, the
tidal zone decreased, and the rate of decrease slowed
because its natural increment was limited. The rate of
change of tidal zone to other types was at 2% per year,
which was close as to the change speed during the 1980s.
Due to the many years deprived from the tidal zone, the
speed was at a surprisingly high level. The destiny of lost
tidal zone was aquaculture, built-up, brine pan, and
dryland. Before 1986, most of the lost tide zone was
converted to brine pan and agriculture, while during
2000–2006, most of the conversions were to aquaculture
and built-up area.
At the same time, the rate of decrease of arable area was
increased, and the value was 4.91 km2 annually. It is
obvious that the rate of change occurred quickly. in
particular, in the period 2000–2006, the rate of change
peaked, and the incremental area was 3.94 km2 each year.
The lost arable area, besides the interchange between
paddy land and dryland, mainly occurred when arable land
was converted into built-up land, which occupied about
72%, and the rate of change to built-up area was up to
15.24%. The other lost arable land was converted into
woodland and aquaculture, which mainly occurred during
2000–2006. Meanwhile, the expansion of brine pan mainly
came from the tidal zone. At the same period, there was
some brine pan turned to built-up land directly, especially
in the period 2000–2006. As discussed earlier, the new
built-up area mainly came from arable land and tidal zone.
The area of settlements increased from 4.38 km2 in 1970 to
5.45 km2 in 2006, with the increasing percentage of 23.43%,
and the increased part came from dry land, paddy land,
and tidal zone. However, its increment speed kept a low
value, i.e. smaller than the built-up change speed. Actually,
this trend means that the rural population and their living
conditions were increasing continually in the background of
urbanization in this area. Figure 6 shows that mean
elevation of the built-up area steadily decreased in the
past 40 years. This means that the expansion of urban
built-up area leads to more exposure to the potential
hazard of marine disaster.
As discussed in previous sections, the tidal zone mainly
turned to aquaculture and brine pan in the early period
(i.e. 1970–1986) and turned to dryland and built-up land
since then because of port construction and urbanization
(Fig. 7). Meanwhile, the settlement expansion normally
occurred around original locations. Because of the rocky
and hilly landscapes in Zhoushan Island and its surrounding islands, the land-use conversions are strongly controlled by the elevation and geomorphology. So the change
matrix of land cover was strongly related to the DEM data;
99% of the woodlands were located in areas with relatively
high mean elevations (110.5 m) and relatively large
gradients (20.38), so that they have been well preserved
in past four decades without significant disturbances from
human activities.
With the economic development in Zhoushan Islands, the
urban built-up area has become larger than settlements in
1995. Most of urban sprawl is occurring in the south of the
Zhoushan Island around Zhoushan city, along with the new
constructions on the port and harbor. Actually, this
phenomenon is due to socioeconomical development and
the policy of urbanization. The authorities of Zhouland city
initialized a construction project and emigration plan from
small islands to the major island in 1993. This policy began
to be effective in 1996. As a result, the expansion of builtup area mainly occurred in the big islands and rarely
occurred in small islands.
CONCLUSIONS
This study reconstructed and analyzed the trajectories of
land-cover change in Zhoushan Island and its surrounding
islands from 1970 to 2011 by using multiple sources of
high-resolution remote sensing imageries. The results
indicate a substantial and accelerating land-cover change
over these islands during the last 40 years. The main
feature of these changes is the expansion of built-up area,
settlements, and aquaculture land and the shrinkage of
tidal zone and arable lands. However, water bodies were
well preserved during the past 40 years, and woodland had
no significant change over the study period in these rocky
and hilly islands. In total, the urban built-up area
increased by about 12.4 times from 1970 to 2011, and the
expansion is most likely going to continue in next decade in
the context of China’s continuing growth in world trade
and socioeconomical development. The land-cover change of
Zhoushan Islands is mainly driven by economic development, population growth, and policy. Urbanization and
industrialization are major types of land-cover change in
China today, which will have a deep effect on the landcover structure of large islands. To ensure sustainable
management on these islands, we should provide integrated assessments on how these historical changes in land
cover affect the interactions between land and ocean and
overall functions of islands for regional environment and
wildlife.
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 00, No. 0, 0000
Chen et al.
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Figure 7. The disappearance of tidal zone (A) and arable land (B) over different time periods during last four decades.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40976109, 40606040), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
Nos. Y506188, Y5100114), the R&D Special Fund for Public
Welfare Industry (Oceanography, Grant Nos. 201005011,
201305009), and Key Projects in the National Science &
Technology Pillar Program (Grant No. 2008BAC42B02).
Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 00, No. 0, 0000
0
Chen et al.
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