48 Chinese Journal of Population, Resources and Environment 2006 Vol. 4 No.4
ARTICLES
Corresponding Author: Lu Changhe(luch@igsnrr.ac.cn)
A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Growth: A Case Study for
Jinan Municipality, China
Yu Bohua
1, 2,3
, Lu Changhe
1
, Zheng Xinqi
4
1. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
2. College of Resources Science & Technolgy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
3. Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Science (GUCAS), Beijing 100039, China;
4. Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong 250014, China
Abstract: China is experiencing a process of rapid industrialization
and urbanization at the cost of agricultural land and environment,
particularly in the costal areas. This study takes Jinan as a case pre-
senting a time-series analysis of urban land expansion from 313 to
2003. The results show that the urban expansion of Jinan city
mainly took place in the last 100 years, especially after the eco-
nomic reform in 1978. Social development and economic growth,
urban population growth and migration policies were factors driving
the urban land expansion. Urban sprawl resulted in a disappearance
of wetlands and a great loss of agricultural land,
and over-pumping
of ground water that led to disappearance of the city’s feature,
namely
“the city of springs”.
Key words: urban land expansion; driving forces; environmental
effects; Jinan
1 Introduction
Since the implementation of the economic reform and
open-door policy in 1978, China has been experiencing a
process of rapid industrialization and urbanization. In 2002,
the proportion of urban population in China increased from
26.4% to in 1990 to 39.0%. Meanwhile, the number of cities
accordingly increased from 467 in 1990 to 660 in 2002 (NBSC,
2003).
The rapid urbanization creates opportunities for the socio-
economic development, triggers serious environmental con-
flicts and causes loss of productive farmland that is acknowl-
edged as a threat to the food security of China. Tan et al. (2005)
reported that in the 1990s, about 74% of the new urban land
was converted from arable land in the BTH region including
Beijing and Tianjin municipality, and Hebei province, where it
experienced a rapid process of urbanization and industrializa-
tion in the 1990s. Several studies concluded that social, eco-
nomic, political and location factors were major driving forces
of the rapid urban land use growth in China. Development of
urban road infrastructure (Cheng and Masser 2003), reforms of
land market, and tax policy and its decentralization process
after the reforms play key roles in the recent quick growth of
urban areas.
As the foreland of the economic reform, the east China
has experienced rapid economic development at a great
cost of arable land. It is estimated that in the total arable
land loss in the recent past, nearly half was due to industri-
alization and urbanization (Deng and Huang, 2004). The
Pearl delta was one of the most important agricultural re-
gions of China, but it has been largely replaced by
non-agricultural land due to development of many new
cities from small towns since 1978. Yeh and Li (1999) re-
ported that the urban area in the Pearl delta expanded by
974% between 1988 and 1993, mainly because of the prop-
erty boom and speculation in the Pearl River Delta and
Hong Kong in the early 1990s. Similar phenomena can be
found in the Yangtze delta, and other costal areas like Shan-
dong province.
China is now at a stage of rapid urbanization. So, urban
studies are needed for a better understanding of urban
growth mechanism to support formulation of urban land use
planning for sustainable urban land use and arable land
protection. As the capital city of Shandong Province with a
long history of more 2000 years, Jinan is representative for
the same type of city that is not only the capital but also as
the socio-economic centre of a province. This study, taking
Jinan as a case study, is to track the urban development
dynamics to deepen the understanding of spatial-temporal
characteristic and mechanism of the urban growth. More-
over, our aim is to analyze the impacts of urban land ex-
pansion on the environment and resource, to offer policy-
makers supports in urban land use planning, and in allevi-
ating the environmental impacts.