Industrial development and land use/cover change and their effects on local environment: a case study of Changshu in eastern coastal China

The interactions among industrial development, land use/cover change (LUCC), and environmental effects in Changshu in the eastern coastal China were analyzed using high-resolution Landsat TM data in 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2006, socio-economic data and water environmental quality monitoring data from research institutes and governmental departments. Three phases of industrial development in Changshu were examined (i.e., the three periods of 1990 to 1995, 1995 to 2000, and 2000 to 2006). Besides industrial development and rapid urbanization, land use/cover in Changshu had changed drastically from 1990 to 2006. This change was characterized by major replacements of farmland by urban and rural settlements, artificial ponds, forested and constructed land. Industrialization, urbanization, agricultural structure adjustment, and rural housing construction were the major socio-economic driving forces of LUCC in Changshu. In addition, the annual value of ecosystem services in Changshu decreased slightly during 1990-2000, but increased significantly during 2000-2006. Nevertheless, the local environmental quality in Changshu, especially in rural areas, has not yet been improved significantly. Thus, this paper suggests an increased attention to fully realize the role of land supply in adjustment of environment-friendly industrial structure and urban-rural spatial restructuring, and translating the land management and environmental protection policies into an optimized industrial distribution and land-use pattern.

Spatial-temporal characteristics of siping urban expansion based on remote sensing and GIS

Based on the RS and GIS methods, Siping city is selected as a study case with four remote sensing images in 25 years. Indices of urban morphology such as fractal dimension and compactness are employed to research the characteristics of urban expansion. Through digital processing and interpreting of the images, the process and characteristics of urban expansion are analysed using urban area change, fractal dimension and compactness. The results showed that there are three terms in this period. It expended fastest in the period of 1979~1991, and in the period of 1992~2001, the emphases on urban redevelopment made it expended slower. And this is in agreement with the Siping Statistical Yearbook. This indicates that the united of metrics of urban morphology and statistical data can be used to satisfactorily describe the process and characteristics of urban expansion. © 2008 IEEE.

Restructuring of a zooplankton community by perturbation from a wind-forced coastal jet

The impact of transient wind events on an established zooplankton community was observed during a, field survey in a, coastal region off northern Norway in May 2002. A transient wind event induced a coastal jet/filament intrusion of warm, saline water into our survey area where a semi-permanent eddy was present. There was an abrupt change in zooplankton community structure within 4-7 days of the wind event, with a change in the size structure, an increase in lower size classes less than 1 mm in equivalent spherical diameter (ESD) and a decrease in larger size classes greater than 1.5 mm in ESD. The slope of zooplankton biovolume spectra changed from -0.6 to -0.8, consistent with the size shifting towards smaller size classes. This study shows that even well established zooplankton communities are susceptible to restructuring during transient wind events, and in particular when wind forcing induces horizontal currents or filaments.