Expansion of Construction Land in the Coastal Areas: A Case Study of the Guangdong - Hong Kong - Macao Greater Bay Area, China

Abstract

Unprecedented urbanization has taken place in the coastal areas, resulting in the degradation and loss of terrestrial and marine ecosystems. This study explored the spatial and temporal pattern of urbanization, taken the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China as the study area. Our results showed that the GBA has experienced dramatic expansion of construction land with the area increasing from 2607.4 km2 in 1980 to 8243.5 km2 in 2018. The largest annual increase rate was 279.7 km2/year occurring from 2000–2010, followed by 149.1 km2/year from 1990–2000. Urban residential land has replaced rural residential land and become the main type of construction land since 2000. Throughout the study period, farmland made the dominant contributions to the expansion of construction land with a decreasing trend in the GBA. Construction land expansion was dominated by edge expansion in the past four decades. A clearer unimodal pattern of the area and a monotonic decrease of the density of new increased construction land were observed as the distance from the city center. We suggested the decision-makers to scientifically plan the distribution of construction land to avoid disorderly construction land sprawl in different distance intervals and protect multiple natural ecosystems to realize the local sustainable development.