Effects of Urbanization on Various Land Use Changes and on Regional Climate Changes over the Pearl River Delta in South China

Abstract

Urbanization changes the land cover.Studying the urbanization effects on regional and global weather and climate changes is essential for our understanding of the anthropogenic influence on nature, and is valuable to planning our future urban development. In the study, the Pearl River Delta in South China is taken into consideration for evaluating the effects of urbanization on the land use changes and the climate changes. Along a great increase in population and the economy ever since the early 1980s, the region has been experiencing a significant change in the land use, mostly from croplands to urban areas, horticulture farms and dike-pond areas. Meanwhile, it is found that the climatic variables, such as temperature, cloud amount and evaporation, show considerable changes during the period over the region. This paper also introduces a simple method for studying the relationship between urbanization and climate change through utilizing the urbanization index and the climate change index.