Intensity Analysis to Communicate Detailed Detection of Land Use and Land Cover Change in Chang-Zhu-Tan Metropolitan Region, China

Quantifying the change in land use and land cover (LULC) is critical for revealing the impact of human activities on the environment of the Earth’s surface. Although some studies were conducted on the change in LULC in rapidly urbanizing areas, conventional methods could not provide a systematic understanding of the changes and their underlying causes. This study adopted an enhanced Intensity Analysis and landscape matrices to deeply explore the change information and expansion modes of LULC in the Chang-Zhu-Tan Metropolitan Region (CZTMR). This exploration was based on remote sensing images from the past 40 years and GIS tools. The results show that the overall change in the LULC accelerated during the period 1980–2020, with its intensity expanding by 16 times. The Built gain and the Crop loss were steadily active. The Built gain was derived mainly from Crop and Forest, and its mode was dominated by edge expansion. It was detected that the Built gain steadily targeted Crop but avoided Forest despite Built gaining a large area from Forest. The reason for this is because Forest initially had the largest area. The measurement results contribute to the formulation of urban plans and land policies for sustainable development in the CZTMR. Our study explained the evolution of Intensity Analysis and its analytical thought, which could be employed in other regions for the detection of land change to help decision makers develop more targeted and sustainable land management strategies.