Gradient Analysis of Landscape Pattern Spatial-temporal Changes in Beijing Metropolitan Area, China

The gradient based landscape metrics analysis is now widely used to study the landscape pattern change in respond to urbanization. In order to discover the Beijing metropolitan area landscape pattern spatial and temporal change trends during the past 15 years, several landscape metrics are computed along a 96 km long transect crossing Beijing metropolitan area from west to east. Specially, the spatial extent issue was profound examined in the gradient analysis. The temporal land use data sets are derived from three Landsat images got by year 1992, 1999 and 2006. The results show that the metrics varied smoothly and regularly along the land use transect when the window is large, while fluctuated irregularly when the window is small. The spatial and temporal characteristics of the metrics well match the hypothetical framework of spatio-temporal urban sprawl in the form of alternating processes of diffusion and coalescence. Some new trends of the urban sprawl style in Beijing metropolitan area are also detected by gradient landscape metrics analysis. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected]. phone +86 027 67883257; fax +86 027 67883251.