Driving Forces of Landscape Fragmentation due to Urban Transportation Networks: Lessons from Fujian, China

Abstract

The study of landscape fragmentation offers promising approaches for better understanding how the interaction between natural conditions and socioeconomic factors generates environmental changes. In this paper, the state of landscape fragmentation due to urban-transportation networks in Fujian Province, China, was calculated on different spatial scales, using effective mesh size as an index for fragmentation degree. The relationship between fragmentation degree and regional socioeconomic development was explored to detect how socioeconomic processes, such as urbanization or industrialization, affect landscape change. The results demonstrated that even more than population increase, economic growth has a more significant impact on landscape. Growth from all three sectors (agriculture, industry, and service) can significantly accelerate the process of landscape fragmentation, and those from industry and service are the recent actual drivers leading to a fragmented landscape in China. The results also suggest that the widespread influences of urbanization on landscape do not always need to be negative, as is the widely accepted notion, and this realization might be helpful in slowing down the speed of landscape fragmentation on a regional scale. Based on this knowledge, the significances of this work for urban planners and policymakers are discussed.