USING REMOTE SENSING AND SOILS TO ESTIMATE THE IMPACT OF URBANIZA TION 
ON SOIL RESOURCES IN CHINA 
E.D. Warner, G.W. Petersen and Egide Nizeyimana 
The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, U.S. 
Xuezhung Shi, Institute of Soil Science, Nanjing, PRC 
M.L. Imhoff, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, U.S. 
W.T. Lawrence, Bowie State University, Bowie, MD, U.S. 
Commission VII, Working Group 5 
KEY WORDS: remote sensing; GIS; Fertility Capability Classification, urban land use; soil databases. 
ABSTRACT: 
Land use and soil maps were overlain with a GIS to determine the extent of land use converted to residential, 
commercial, industrial, and extractive purposes and the impact of land development on soil resources in an area of 
southeastern Jiangsu Province and northwestern Shanghai City. Land use was mapped for years 1984, 1992 and 1994 
with Thematic Mapper and SPOT imagery. A digital soils data base was compiled from original Chinese sources that 
were translated to FAO soil units and texture. Soils and terrain data were combined to classify soils into Fertility 
Capability Classification categories. GIS overlay revealed that the amount of developed land doubled by 1994, with 
most of the development occurring on soils with few limitations. 
1. INTRODUCTION 
Urbanization in China has increased dramatically in 
the last 10 years, as a result of changes in economic 
policies encouraging free market enterprises. Remote 
sensing provides a method for monitoring changes in 
the extent of urban areas through time. An approach 
for defining the impact of land use conversion is 
available by combining remotely sensed land use 
information with ancillary data. The Meteorological 
Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System 
(DMSP/OLS) nighttime imagery detects lights 
associated with urban areas on a continental basis. 
Urban area maps derived from DMSP/OLS imagery 
have been applied for mapping agricultural land loss 
in the United States (Imhoff et al, 1996). This study 
examines the nature of land use conversion in 
northwestern Shanghai City and southeastern Jiangsu 
Province and the impact of these changes on the 
agricultural resources. The data bases resulting from 
this effort provide a basis for assessing the utility of 
DMSP/OLS imagery for land use investigations . 
outside the U.S. and highlight the applicability of 
combining ground and remote sensing data for 
resource investigations. 
2. MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY 
Land use maps were constructed from the 
interpretation of three satellite images of a 3,914 km2 
study site, that include a section of Shanghai City and 
southeastern Jiangsu Province, see Figure 1. It should 
be noted that the study area incorporates a non- 
municipal area of Shanghai City, whose official 
boundary encompass both city and rural land. 
Satellite images, described in Table 1, were acquired 
for the years 1984, 1992 and 1994, and interpreted to 
yield maps of land use described by four categories; 
developed, agricultural, forest and water. Water 
proved difficult to reliably track between years because 
of it's use for irrigated agriculture, so a map was 
generated representing the boundaries of the major 
water bodies and used in all land use maps. The 1994 
SPOT derived land use map was generalized to a 30 
meter resolution to match the resolution of the maps 
created from the earlier imagery. 
Table 1 Satellite imagery description 
  
  
  
  
Instrument Ground Acquisition 
Resolution Date 
meters 
Thematic 30 6/84 
Mapper 8/92 
SPOT HRV 20 5/94 
  
  
  
  
496 International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 
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