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Land use change detection by remote sensing (RS) and simulation-based prediction may provide support to rational spatial planning of territory, which is of great significance to ensure sustainable land management. For this purpose, this paper employed multitemporal Landsat images dated 2010, 2015 and 2020 and county-level socioeconomic data for achieving such an integrated study taking Hefei city as an example. After atmospheric correction using the COST (Cosine Theta) model, the maximum likelihood approach and post-classification differencing were applied respectively to classify the images and to reveal the land use changes. The Logistic-Multi-Criteria Evaluation-Celluar Automata-Markov (LMCM) hybrid model was harnessed to simulate the land use pattern of 2025 under four different scenarios namely business as usual (BAU), ecological protection (EP), economic development (ED) and sustainable development (SD). The results show that (1) during the period 2010-2020, the built-up areas increased by 804.69 km2 and the croplands decreased by 568.14 km2; (2) There seems to be a big difference between the predicted croplands and built-up areas in the four scenarios in 2025. Under the EP scenario, the built-up areas may likely gain an increase of 244.27 km2, indicating that the environment shall be protected but the urbanization will be also limited. Under the ED scenario, the built-up areas may be extended by 829.54 km2 and the croplands and forests are likely to decline significantly in 2025, meaning that overemphasizing urban development would not only threaten food security, but also bring harm to the local ecosystem. Under the SD scenario, the increase of built-up areas and the reduction of croplands would both come between the other scenarios, and the land use structure seems more stable and rational. Clearly, the SD scenario is the potential pathway for sustainable land use management in the long run. These results may provide the local governments with reference for their decision-making to conduct sustainable land use and urban planning.
He et al. (Mon,) studied this question.