The Comparison of Urban and Rural Built-up land Change: A County-level Investigation in Wuhan Agglomeration

Background: In the context of the proposition of new urbanization planning and sustainable urban development, the optimization of built-up land use has been highlighted for both scholars and government officials. Much research has been done on the expansion of urban areas or the scattering of rural settlements. However, previous work has rarely focused on the comparison of urban and rural built-up land at the county-level. Methodology: In this study, we perform spatial analysis, correlation and multivariate regression analysis to compare the urban and rural built-up land change at the county-level in Wuhan agglomeration from 1995 to 2010 based on Remote Sensing and Geographical Information System techniques. Specifically, the spatial pattern, dynamics, driving mechanism and policy implications are compared accordingly for urban and rural built-up land. Results and Conclusion: It is found that 1) both urban and rural built-up land have expanded in the past 15 years with the previous one demonstrating the increment at a higher level; 2) there is regional difference regarding the distribution of urban and rural built-up land whereas both exhibit significant spatial autocorrelation; 3) the dynamics of urban and rural built-up land accords with the socio-economic and political background; the economic development and population growth are the major driving force for urban built-up land and rural built-up land respectively; 4) effective policies in terms of regulating land use and relocating resources are in anticipation to be proposed in the future.