Monitoring land use/land cover changes of Kunming city based on remote sensing technology and spatial metrics

The plateau lakeside Kunming city has experienced three decades of rapid urbanization and high economic growth since 1978 when China adopted reform and “open-door” policy. Dianchi watershed in which Kunming city is located also experienced the serious deterioration of ecological system from the late 1970s. In search of a viable way to coordinate between urban growth and protection of freshwater lake, objective of this paper is to monitor land use/land cover change of Kunming city through the methods of Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information System (GIS), spatial metrics and Moran's I. index. The results show that land use/land cover change in Kunming city is characterized by the sprawl of urban built-up area and the decrease of agricultural land. Urban built-up area has gradually replaced agricultural land to be the most dominant land use type in the study area. Urban growth of Kunming experienced a “clustered-dispersed-clustered” process, sprawling like an expanding pancake. There is very limited space for urban built-up area to further expand. Upon the analysis of the aspects that affect the sprawl characteristics, several useful suggestions were made for the authority and planners.