Urban growth modeling of Jiangning through Cellular Automata

In this study, two Landsat (TM) images acquired (1987, 1998) and maps in 1966, are being used to investigate urban growth in Jiangning using multitemporal change detection techniques. The results showed that Jiangning has lost a great deal of good agriculture land to urban uses in the past 32 years. More and more agriculture land converted to non-agriculture one, therefore, urban area expands very fast. The urban growth is predicted from 1998 to 2010 based on Cellular Automata, whereas the predicted result in 2010 will be checked by the future situations of urban development. The analysis of Cellular Automata suggests that the highest land-use attractor is the city of Nanjing. Fertile agriculture land is the least stable categories. The approach can be extrapolated to similar areas of fast growth and urban land use change, especially in developing countries like China.