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Land-use dynamics and flood risk in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta: The caseof Foshan CityHao Zhang & Xiang-rong WangPublished online: 24 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Hao Zhang & Xiang-rong Wang (2007) Land-use dynamics and flood risk in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta: The case of Foshan City, InternationalJournal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 14:5, 485-492, DOI: 10.1080/13504500709469747

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Land-use dynamics and flood risk in thehinterland of the Pearl River Delta:The case of Foshan City

Hao Zhang1 and Xiang-rong Wang1,2

1Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China2Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering,Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Key words: LUCC, urbanization, flood risk, Pearl River Delta, Foshan City

SUMMARYThis study examines land-use change and flood risk in the rapidly urbanizing Foshan City,a typical hinterland city in the Pearl River Delta. On the basis of classification of LandsatTM and ETM+ imagery, and further GIS-based spatial analysis, the paper determines that,between 1988–2003, massive land-use and -cover change (LUCC) occurred in this region.During the drastic land-use change, the loss of river area was much lower than that ofother land-use types. In this region, appropriately 57.89% of water area was converted tothe other land types; 46.65% was converted to new dyke-ponds, farmland, and built-uparea, whereas the proportion of the other land types converted to water was only 42.97%.Nearly 15% of total water loss was in land for human use, which represents the degrada-tion of the buffering capacity of the water systems to rainstorms. Further, driven by thepressure of urbanization, drastic changes in land use have resulted in significant alterna-tion of hydrological conditions of the river systems, which, in turn, have potentially causedthe higher flood risk in more populous urban areas in the sub-delta plain. Therefore,rational land-use policies should be implemented to give maximum returns while mini-mizing adverse impacts of flooding.

INTRODUCTION

Flooding is the result of complex interrelated fac-tors including climatic, topographic, topologicaland anthropogenic aspects. In the context of globalchange and climate warming, land-use andland-cover change (LUCC) has recently receivedmuch attention due to its important role in runoffgeneration, soil erosion, flood control and preven-tion. Previous studies have showed that, aside fromthe natural processes, irrational land use byhumans can be responsible for catastrophic floods

worldwide (Robinson and Blackman 1990; Savenije1995; Parkin et al. 1996; Sala 2003; Arnaud-Fassettaet al. 2005; Pottier et al. 2005; Shi et al. 2005; Tu et al.2005; Brath et al. 2005).

As a developing country with a huge population,China has experienced unprecedented rapid eco-nomic growth and widespread urbanization overthe past two decades. As a result, emerging environ-mental deterioration has been focused on currentenvironmental policies, which drove the country to

International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 14 (2007) 485–492

Correspondence: Hao Zhang, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai200433, China. Email: zhokzhok@163.com

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achieve economic goals at the cost of environmen-tal change. For example, cities in China are subjectto increasing floods on a regional scale; however,the linkage between LUCC and flood risk attractedlittle attention until a catastrophic flood occurredin 1998 (Chen et al. 1999; Li 1999; Meng et al. 1999;Liu 2004; Zheng and Wu 2005).

The Pearl River Delta, one of the most powerfulengines of China’s economic development, hasundergone drastic land-use changes (Yeh and Li1999; Ouyang et al. 2005) and subsequently hasfaced pronounced environmental deteriorationduring the rapid urbanization. Among environ-mental responses to the joint effects of drasticchanges in human-induced land use and climate,recent, more frequent and severe flood disasterssuggest consequences on a regional scale. There-fore, in this paper, Foshan City was selected as a casestudy because of its location and economic impor-tance in the Pearl River Delta, as well being a citythat has experienced severe flood disasters over thepast century. The objective of this paper is to iden-tify recent LUCC, driven by socio-economic forcesthat have increased local flood risks, and to discusspossible beneficial policies for flood managementin the Pearl River Delta and elsewhere.

STUDY AREA

Foshan is between latitudes 22°38′N and 23°34′N,and longitudes 112°22′E and 113°23′E (Figure 1).The area has a subtropical climate with an annualtemperature of around 20–25°C. Annual precipita-tion varies from 1600 to 2000 mm, of whichabout 80% is usually received during April andSeptember, namely the flood season. The area isdominated by plains (70.9%) and hills (20%). Thehills are in the north and southwest (highest eleva-tion 805 m). The plains are divided into a high-sub-delta and a sub-delta plains. The high-sub-deltaplain is mainly in the east, north and northwest(elevation of 5–12 m), and the sub-delta plain ismainly in the southeast (elevation of 2–3 m).

Foshan is an emerging metropolis, close toGuangzhou, and the third largest city inGuangdong Province. Administratively, Foshanterritory covers 3813 km2 and consists of five dis-tricts: Chancheng, Shunde, Nanhai , Sanshui andGaoming. At the end of 2003, local total GDP was12.18% of that for the whole delta. Local GDP percapita was US$5739, nearly 1.2-times the average

GDP per capita (US$4972) for the whole deltaregion. The number of permanent residents was3.51 million, nearly 14.63% of the total populationof the delta (Guangdong Provincial Bureau ofStatistics 2004). The annual population growth ratebetween 1988 and 2003 was 1.6%.

METHODS

Land use/cover change detection

Landsat Thematic Mapper data (TM-5) and en-hanced Thematic Mapper data (ETM+), bothnearly cloud-free, were used for this study. Thetwo datasets were from December 17 1988 andDecember 28 2003, respectively. A topographicalmap and land-use map (1:100000) from 1996, andan integrated GIS-based water environment system(1:50000 and 1:250000) for 2002 were used as refer-ence data and for accuracy assessment. The datawere resampled using the nearest-neighbor algo-rithm to retain the unchanged original brightnessvalues of pixels, and the root mean-squared error(RMSE) were found within 1 pixel. Image process-ing and data manipulation were conducted usingalgorithms in the GEOSTAR® image processingsoftware.

Bands 5, 4 and 3 of the TM/ ETM+ images werecombined to produce visual images according to a

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486 International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology

Figure 1 Location of the study area

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pre-determined classification scheme of seven cate-gories of land cover present within the study areaand their image characteristics. The classificationscheme was modified in accordance with the land-use classification system from the China NationalCommittee of Agriculture Division (1984). Thecategories consisted of urban or built-up area, farm-land, forest, shrublands, water (mainly rivers,streams and reservoirs), fallow land, and dyke-ponds. The dyke-pond is a type of water-coveredagricultural land, which is specially dug for com-bined production of aquiculture and crops. Thesupervised signature extraction with the maximumlikelihood algorithm was employed to classify thesatellite images. For each image, 250 samples werealso randomly selected to check the accuracy of theclassified maps, and the KAPPA indices for the 1988and 2003 maps were 86.1% and 91.3% respectively,and meet the recommended value suggested byLucas et al. (1994). Subsequently, LUCC patterns for1988 and 2003 were mapped using Landsat The-matic Mapper data (TM-5) and enhanced ThematicMapper data (ETM+) respectively. Further, ESRIARCGIS® was used for spatial analyses.

Computation of landscape metrics

Landscape metrics provide a quantitative tool toreveal landscape patterns closely associated withLUCC. Moreover, a combination of land-usechange metrics and landscape metrics helps toestablish a linkage between the driving forces andenvironmental or ecological processes. Landscapemetrics can be derived at the patch, class and land-scape levels; among which, class metrics are espe-cially useful to present each patch type (class) in thelandscape. Herein, our interest was mainly focused

on analyzing the temporal and spatial changes inlandscape metrics at the class level. In order toinvestigate land cover and landscape change, thefollowing landscape indices were selected: numberof patches (NP), percentage of landscape (PLAND),patch density (PD), normalized landscape shapeindex (NLSI), largest patch index (LPI), andperimeter–area fractal dimension (PAFRAC).These measured landscape structure at the classscale and landscape heterogeneity at landscapescale during the same period (Fu et al. 2001). All theanalytical processes were performed usingFRAGSTATS 3.3 (McGarigal et al. 2002).

RESULTS AND DISSCUSSION

Land-use and -cover change

Table 1 shows the dramatic changes in land use inFoshan territory from 1988–2003. Urban orbuilt-up area and dyke-pond land substantiallyincreased, while natural and semi-natural areas(including rivers, forest, shrublands and fallowland) significantly decreased. According to theland-use transfer matrix, 40.06% of the newly-expanded built-up area was mainly converted from15.33% of dyke-pond, 13.55% of farmland, 13.54%of fallow land, 13.29% of forest, 21.88% ofshrubland, and 6.64% of rivers. About 26.1% of thenewly increased dyke-pond area was convertedfrom 26.72% of the water area, 25.19% of farmland,17.26% of forest, 17.11% of fallow land, 12.03% ofshrubland, and 11.42% of the urban area. Amongthe drastic changes in land use during the studyperiod, the annual rate of change in water-coveredarea was much lower than that of shrubland andforest among the natural or semi-natural forms of

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International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 487

Land-use type Water Dyke-pond Farmland Fallow land Forest Shrubland Built-up area

WaterDyke-pondFarmlandFallow landForestShrublandBuilt-up areaChange in area (ha)Change in rate (ha yr−1)

42.1226.7213.293.724.632.926.64

−2964.00−197.60

5.4855.5214.622.944.301.82

15.33+25037.00+1669.13

1.6025.1929.683.73

15.0511.2013.55

+7045.00+469.67

3.5717.1128.595.91

14.8516.4313.54

−2406.00−160.40

1.2317.2621.642.45

30.3813.7513.29

−45515.00−3034.33

1.4812.0323.373.85

21.3616.0221.88

−22515.00−1501.00

2.3111.4214.162.035.984.13

59.94+41318.00+2754.53

Note: The columns and rows contain data for 1988 and 2003, respectively

Table 1 Land-use transfer matrix in Foshan, 1988–2003

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land cover. However, approximately 57.89% ofwater area was converted to the other land types:46.65% of water area was converted to newdyke-ponds, farmland and built-up area; whereasthe proportion of the other land types converted towater area was only 42.97%. In summary, nearly15% of total water area loss was caused in the inter-est of human use between 1988–2003. This alsorepresented an increasing potential flood risk, withthe degradation of buffering capacity of the watersystems to rainstorms.

Landscape pattern dynamics

Table 2 shows the 1988–2003 percentage of land-scape (PLAND) covered by forest and shrublandgradually decreased, while PLAND of dyke-pondsand urban or built-up area gradually increased. ThePLAND of farmland increased at a lower rate, as didthat of fallow land and rivers. Correspondingly,there was a drastic decrease in the largest patchindex (LPI) of the forest (54.11%) and shrubland(51.61%) during 1988–2003. Simultaneously, LPIof the dyke-ponds decreased 52.91% and that of thebuilt-up area drastically increased by 409.79%. Thedrastic decrease in LPI of forest and shrubland canbe explained by land conversion and fragmentedlandscapes due to human activities, and the de-creased LPI of dyke-ponds with increased PLANDindicates the disaggregated pattern of currentdyke-ponds and conversion from other land types.In contrast, the increased PLAND and decreased

NP, PD and LPI of the built-up area indicate theincreasingly aggregated pattern of urban land use.In 2003, the normalized landscape shape indices(NLSI) of farmland, forest and shrubland werehigher than those of dyke-pond, built-up area andriver in 1988; the NLSI of the built-up area signifi-cantly decreased from 0.5106 in 1988 to 0.2048 in2003. All of these indices indicate that the patchtypes of dyke-pond, built-up area and river becameincreasingly aggregated. Correspondingly, thesepatch types attained more regular shapes throughhuman use. To a large degree, bridges, highwaysand rivers have helped to create the regular form ofthe urban area during this period of drasticland-use change.

Linkage between land-use change andflood risk

Floods in Foshan were traditionally a consequenceof lower lands subject to flood risk. Topographic-ally, within Foshan territory, most built-up areasand farmlands were located in the fertile floodedplains, where elevation is 0.4–2.0 m. The total areaof land subject to flood risk was 1245.8 km2. Overthe past century, 45 severe floods have occurred inthis region. Between 1900 and 1949 there were 36severe floods. The 1915 flood had a return periodof 200 years, and had severe catastrophic conse-quences (Water Resources Administration ofFoshan 2000). Since 1949, the strong demand toprotect farmlands and populous settlements

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488 International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology

Indices

Class Year PLAND NP PD LPI PAFRAC NLSI

Farmland 19882003

19.661621.5082

88299446

2.27022.4287

0.86860.8349

1.55781.6148

0.44390.5031

Forest 19882003

29.311517.3386

99908234

2.56872.1171

7.82593.5911

1.62971.5956

0.41790.4067

Shrubland 19882003

16.073210.2533

76766187

1.97371.5908

1.94620.9418

1.56701.5170

0.45750.4892

Dyke-pond 19882003

18.539325.0847

69515598

1.78731.4393

9.29484.3771

1.56741.5336

0.32030.3015

Fallow land 19882003

3.83373.1947

60405455

1.55301.4026

0.05040.0563

1.53621.5339

0.70980.7309

Built-up 19882003

7.383918.1763

61032397

1.56920.6163

0.98074.9996

1.53331.3665

0.51060.2048

Water 19882003

5.19684.4442

29762242

0.76520.5765

0.79170.7302

1.49061.5332

0.36890.3341

Table 2 Landscape pattern metrics (at class level) of Foshan City in 1988–2003. See Methods for acronyms

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encouraged large-scale construction of water facili-ties and flood control systems. As a result, only ninefloods occurred from 1949–2005. However, threefloods between 1994–2005 caused severe damage tothe region. Obviously, frequency of floods and sub-sequent flood risk has increased.

Historical data show water diversion from theXijiang River has always been higher than that fromthe Beijiang River. In 1962–1992 water diversion ofthe Xijiang River was over 80%, whereas that forBeijiang River fluctuated between 11.0–16.2%(Water Resources Administration of Foshan 2000).However, during rapid urbanization and industrial-ization since the mid-1980s, large-scale sand excava-tion in the major rivers was encouraged to meet theincreasing demand for building sand. Figures 2 and3 show the relationship between sprawling built-uparea and human-induced changes to the river

systems. It was estimated that, each year between1962–1992, about 16.67 million m3 of sand weredug from the main streams of the Xijiang, Beijiangand other waterways, such as the Dongping,Shunde and Donghai. Subsequently, the annualamount of sand taken from these rivers decreasedto 28% of the yearly total amount of sand enteringthe Pearl River Delta (Du 2002). Thus, significantalteration to the water diversion ratio of Xijiang andBeijiang Rivers has occurred since 1993. The diver-sion ratio of Beijiang River increased to 21% andreached a maximum of 25.7% in 1996 (Figure 3).This shows that the ongoing digging activity alongmajor rivers has greatly altered the hydrologicalconditions, including altering the diversion ratio ofmajor rivers and the surface degradation gradientbetween upstream and downstream areas, whichplay important roles in water resource allocationand flood risk control in Foshan territory.

Spatially, the upstream areas partly benefitedfrom the deeper riverbeds due to digging activity,especially in drought seasons where shippingbecame easier (Han et al. 2005). However, extensivesand excavation in upstream areas not only signifi-cantly increased the river cross-section, but alsotriggered widespread soil erosion; this, in turn,caused considerable damage to roads, buildings,water facilities and farmlands close to the rivers.Moreover, the human-created sandpits were mainlyin the major upstream areas, as sand was better-quality in these areas, whereas the networks of thesub-delta plain were left relatively intact and sedi-mentation increased in these lower areas. Hence,

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International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 489

Figure 2 Changes in the land-use pattern and urban sprawl of Foshan between 1988 and 2003

Figure 3 Water diversion dynamics of the Xijiang andBeijiang Rivers from 1962 to 2000, taken from monitor-ing sites at Makou and Sanshui

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gradually rising riverbeds in the sub-delta causedabnormally high water levels in the flood season.

Current urban and agricultural drainage systemsonce functioned well in the case of 24-h continuousrainfall, with a return period of 10 years. However,runoff volume is directly related to sprawling,urban impervious surfaces and farmland with lowervegetation cover, which has increased the pressureon the capacity of pumps and drainage canals andcaused rising water levels in inner rivers, dykes andmajor rivers during heavy rainfall. In addition,between 1988–2003, the expanding urban areaclose to major rivers considerably increased (Figure2), leading to building of levees to protect thebuilt-up area and farmlands. Inevitably, the leveesand other water facilities decreased the cross-section of the major rivers, and increased the waterlevel. Further, the dense network of bridges,present and under construction, aimed at linkingthe urbanized areas on major rivers, changed thehydrological conditions of the rivers, and caused asharp rise in water levels in the flood season. It iswell documented that the large numbers of piers inthe major rivers have caused rising water levels ofabout 0.1–0.2 m. However, in extreme floods, thewater level may rise 0.65 m over a length of 500 m(Huang and Zhang 2004; Liu 2004; Peng et al.2004), which, to some extent, aggravates the floodrisk. During the severe floods of 1994, 1998 and2005, the upstream area flood risk decreased due

to the broader cross-section and deeper riverbeds,which let the large discharge pass through quickly.However, downstream areas of the sub-delta plain,especially the rapidly-urbanized area containinglabour-intensive industries, suffered disastrousfloods. This occurred at the confluences of theRongqi, Lezhu and Banshawei, where the elevatedriverbeds and narrow cross-sections impeded theflood peaks. Consequently, the water levels reachedthose of floods with return periods of 100–200years, and even exceeded 300 years in 1994, 1998and 2005. In contrast, during the same period, inthe upstream sections of Makou, Sanshui, Zidong,Sanduo and Lanshi rivers, the highest water levelshad return periods of 50, 20 years and less than 10years, respectively (Figure 4).

CONCLUSIONS

Analysis of land-uses change and landscape patterndynamics revealed an increasing interplay betweenhuman activities and the environment, which maybe responsible for more severe floods and potentialrisks caused by extensive human disturbance in thisregion. With the drastic land-use changes, thenewly-urbanized areas have sprawled in the proxim-ity of major rivers and, therefore, the more popu-lous and urbanized areas in the sub-delta plain aremore subject to flood risk than ever.

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490 International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology

Figure 4 Time scale of return floods in upstream and downstream river sections in 1994 and 2005. Vertical hatching:1994 flood; cross-hatching: 1998 flood; diagonal hatching: 2005 flood

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As the evidence shows that floods cannot becompletely prevented by installing water facilitiesalone, rational land-use policies should be taken toachieve maximum returns while minimizingadverse impacts of floods. Therefore, human dis-turbance to the hydrology of the river systemsshould be strictly constrained. For example, large-scale sand excavation in major upstream riversshould be incorporated into a comprehensive treat-ment that includes channel dredging to reduceelevated downstream riverbeds and subsequentbottlenecks to large water discharges. Further, inorder to match the demand for expansion of urbanareas, it is urgent to develop bridges with biggerspans across the rivers, and thus decrease the poten-tial impact of dense piers from many bridges onhydrological conditions in the flood season. More-over, under the growing pressure of demand forurban land, the small channels and ponds close toor within urban areas should never give way to

buildings or other urban infrastructure. Remnantsmall waterbodies should be retained and used ascontainers to relieve potential floods. The forestand shrubland areas should be conserved andrecovered to help to decrease runoff amount.Irrational conversion of forest and shrubland toagricultural and urban land should be discouragedin land-use policy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was funded by the Youth ScienceFoundation of Fudan University (Grant No.EXH591330) and the Initial Support Foundationfor young teachers of Fudan University (Grant No.CHH1829012). Thanks to the EnvironmentalProtection Bureau of Foshan, the Water ResourcesAdministration of Foshan, and other administrativedivisions of Foshan municipal government for theirgenerous help.

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