If this is 
] indicate a 
land more 
replace the 
oss is even 
| was taken 
yielding a 
nd acreage. 
icant in the 
reflect the 
bination of 
ified as the 
ed land the 
ixed pixels 
only pixels 
aging were 
there were 
which were 
r road and 
etween the 
ture. It is 
uddle areas 
r was soon 
n only to a 
ill in 1984. 
[ likely the 
ated by the 
an only be 
yr highway 
which will 
The more 
opment as 
es to build. 
ts is that 
igricultural 
no major 
he land is 
1ent occurs 
ses and the 
e to the 
and in the 
duction in 
ual loss is 
e from the 
study area 
re. The 
Statistics 
is in a part 
moderately 
Areas to 
major crops 
owever the 
1990 census (Jiangsu Province Statistics Bureau, 
1990) indicates that these areas also have the highest 
rates of population growth, increasing the need for 
food. The increase in people may require that even 
marginaliy important land be retained for agricultural 
production, which by the results described above is not 
occurring. 
S. CONCLUSIONS 
The land use changes identified by this study were 
characterized by the development of agricultural land 
at an increasing rate and the utilization of the best 
soils. The utilization of remote sensing and digital 
soils data proved to be an efficient method for 
identifying and evaluating land conversion. The 
approach can be readily applied to examining larger 
areas to validate development trends in other parts of 
the country or the world. 
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
This work was supported in part by the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration/Office of Earth 
Science (NASA/OES) under Grant NAG 5-3856. 
Thanks to Dr. Freddy Nachtergaele of the FAO AGL 
for providing the FAO to FCC conversion criteria. 
7. LITERATURE CITED 
Imhoff, M.L., W.T. Lawrence, C.D. Elvidge, T. Paul, 
E. Levine, M.V. Privalsky, and V. Brown, 1996. 
Using nighttime DMSP/OLS images of city lights 
for estimating the impact of urban land use on soil 
resources in the U.S. Remote Sensing of 
Environment, 59, pp. 105-117. 
Jiangsu Province Statistics Bureau, 1990. Annual 
Report of Social and Economics Statistics of 
Jiangsu Province. 
Jiangsu Province Statistics Bureau, 1995. Annual 
Report of Social and Economics Statistics of 
Jiangsu Province. 
Intemational Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXII, Part 7, Budapest, 1998 
499