Patterns and Distributions of Urban Expansion in Global Watersheds

Abstract Understanding urban expansion at the watershed scale is important because watersheds are important carriers of ecological and environmental impacts. However, current analyses are mainly restricted to administrative units only. Here, we used a long‐term multitemporal data set of urban land to quantify the spatiotemporal trends in the extent and form of urban expansion from 1992 to 2016 in endorheic and exoreic watersheds, globally. Overall, urban expansion in 70% of watersheds (154/220) showed a decelerating trend. The average urban expansion speed of these watersheds in the last 6 years was approximately half of that in the last 24 years. Urban expansion speed in endorheic watersheds lagged behind the counterparts in exoreic watersheds, with the former approximately 1/4 of the latter. More importantly, the pattern of urban expansion in endorheic watersheds was following the low‐density and sprawling trend in exoreic watersheds, which could exert far‐reaching impacts on the sustainability of endorheic watersheds located in arid lands. These findings suggest the need to look beyond administrative city boundaries for land use planning and policies in the context of watershed management.