ESDA-GIS-based analysis of built-up land expansion in Zhejiang province of China

Rapid urbanization and industrialization in Zhejiang Province of China have resulted in drastic expansion of built-up land. In this study, some indices were introduced to indicate the expansion of built-up land by using conventional statistics, spatial statistics and GIS technique. It was found that the built-up land had presented great change since 1990, the expansion of all kinds of built-up land was rapid and showed certain periodic distribution traits and regional differentiation. The increasing fractal dimensions of urban settlements, industrial park-mine transport land indicated the configuration of these land become more and more unstable. The expansion speed showed regional disparity, most of built-up land was in high and moderate speed expansion. The expansion speed and intensity had positive significantly spatial correlation and concentrative distribution, high value regions of expansion intensity were distributed along the central and developed cities, transport lines. Whereas the high value regions of expansion speed are mainly distributed around developing cities.