HAO XU et al: ASSESSING CHANGES IN GREEN SPACE OF SUZHOU CITY USING REMOTE-SENSING

In order to explore the change of Green Space in Suzhou, a central City in China's Yangtze River Delta, and reveal the spatial characteristics, ecological benefits and its impact mechanism, this study extracted a distribution map of the patches of green spaces in Suzhou using Landsat remote-sensing image data from 1998 and 2007, analyzed and assessed the changes in scale and spatial layout of the green spaces using various landscape metrics including CA, PLAND, PD, MPS, LPI, NP, PD, TE, ED, MPI, and LSI. The result indicated that the scale of the green space and the number of the patches in Suzhou decreased significantly, the discrete degree of green space in each area increased in different extent, and the connectivity decreased clearly. More of the small green space patches have disappeared. The green space totally exhibited tendencies of decline and contraction. Green space patches were unevenly distributed in Suzhou. The green space patches in old urban area were founded to be less in quantity, poor in connectivity, and maximal in discrete distance. While the new urban area of Suzhou retained a large number of cultivated land, water and woodland, and there was no distinct rank difference from suburban country. In northern area like Taicang, Changshu and Zhangjiagang districts, the green space increased in scale, and it tended to be large, concentrated and stable in pattern. While in central and southern districts, the green space decreased in different level. Particularly, the green space of Wujiang and Kunshan in the southeast had the highest decrement rate, and the green space patterns turned to be fragmented for getting disturbed by urbanization.