Land Use/Land Cover Dynamic Monitoring and Analysis Using Remote Sensing and GIS Techniques: Case Study of Qingpu District, Shanghai

This paper illustrates almost twenty years (1986～2007) of Land use/land cover change (LULCC) in Qingpu-one district of Shanghai. Qingpu District is an area of Upper Huangpu Catchment for fresh water supply with considerable ecological value, but it is also experiencing urban sprawl from development. To reveal the trends underlie LULCC, we propose a novel procedure to quantify different land use/land covers and implement it in the case study. In this procedure, we first collect historical remote-sensing data and co-registered or corrected them to the same spatial resolution and radioactive level. Based upon preliminary interpretation or investigation, land use/land cover types in study area can be included in 5 categories, i.e. Water, Agricultural Land, Urban or Built-up Land, Forest Land, and Barren Land or others. Moreover, data is clipped via boundary of study area for reducing computation load, followed by FPCR-ISODATA classification to divide the data into k groups (k>the number of land types). After postprocessing, e.g., merge the same connoted subgroups and correct misclassified units accompany with validation and verification, the detailed land use/land cover results can be achieved accurately. The quantitative and regression analysis indicate that during the past twenty years the area of agricultural land of Qingpu decreased coupled with urban or built-up area increased linearly. The water area had the minimum change during the decades. Forests had the smallest average proportion (9.6%) of the total area. It occupied so small proportion of land that we can only find points of it in the maps. Barren land can be an indicator for monitoring uncompleted redevelopment or transition of land.