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ABSTRACT
This paper aims to analyze the evolution of land-use patterns and the Eco-Environmental Quality Index (EQI) in major
European metropolitan areas. To this end, nighttime remote sensing images will be used to delineate ten major European
metropolitan areas with more than 1 million inhabitants and CLC land cover data will be used to reclassify European
land occupation types from 2000 to 2018. Based on MODIS satellite remote sensing imagery, the evolution of EQI was
studied for the EQI evaluation systems applicable to different periods and different regions. The results show that in
Europe, cultivated cover and discontinuous built-up cover occupy the largest part of the land, but the former is shrinking
and the latter is expanding. Other land areas are much smaller than the previous two. Among them, grassland has always
shown a growing trend, and the fastest growing area is industrial land, while the slow-expanding land includes
transportation land, leisure land and water bodies. The overall result of the EQI was estimated to be around 0.59. The
average result in 2000 was the highest, with a decrease in 2006, but a small increase since then. The ecological
environment of each metropolitan area has experienced both improvement and deterioration. Overall conditions
improved in Barcelona, the English central agglomeration, Rome and the diffuse landscape of Northern Italy, London
and Naples. But The Belgian/Dutch agglomeration, the lands of Paris and the Rhine-Ruhr, the vast majority of the
ecological quality is deteriorating. Madrid's EQI worsened the most.
Keywords: Land use patterns, eco-environmental quality index, remote sensing, sustainable development
1. INTRODUCTION
With the development of urbanization and rapid social and economic construction all over the modern world, the
ecological environment has been seriously damaged by human activities, and the resulting ecological problems are also
increasing, such as soil erosion, land salinity and desertification, and the sharp decrease in the diversity of animals and
plants [1-2]. At the same time, natural disasters and extreme climates such as floods, droughts, global warming, and high
temperature and heat waves occur frequently with the deterioration of the ecological environment [3-6]. A good
ecological environment is the basis for sustainable social development and human survival, and the degradation of the
ecological environment has seriously affected the development of human society and people's health. We must pay
attention to solving ecological and environmental problems while maintaining urban construction and economic
development, as well as the steady improvement of science and technology. Only in this way can a harmonious
coexistence between man and nature be formed, the frequent occurrence of natural disasters and extreme weather can be
reduced, and the people's health and the sustainable use of natural resources can be guaranteed [7].
The scientific evaluation of the ecological environment and the rational optimization and regulation of its pattern are not
only a hot issue in the field of climate and environment research, but also an urgent need for ecological economic
development and ecological civilization construction [8]. At present, satellite remote sensing earth observation system
has been widely used in the field of ecological environment because of its macroscopic, rapid and real-time advantages.
Using various remote sensing indices to monitor and evaluate natural forests, grasslands, urban man-made ground, water
bodies, and even ecosystems in the entire region has become an important part of the field of ecological environmental
protection [9]. With the development of "3S" technology (Remote sensing, Geography information systems, and
Globalpositioning systems), many scholars began to use RS and GIS technology to obtain ground information, combined
with mathematical models and statistical analysis methods, from single factor to multi-factor, different Comprehensive
evaluation of the ecological environment in terms of regional scope and scale space [10-11]. In 2009, Ivits et al. [12]
used SPOT image data to evaluate the ecological environment of forest and farmland bird habitats with vegetation index
1
Corresponding author: zhlang960@gmail.com; phone +34 657126381
Remote Sensing Technologies and Applications in Urban Environments VII, edited by Thilo Erbertseder,
Nektarios Chrysoulakis, Ying Zhang, Proc. of SPIE Vol. 12269, 1226906
© 2022 SPIE · 0277-786X · doi: 10.1117/12.2636026
2. METHODOLOGY
This study can be divided into two main parts: First, we need to classify European land use so that we can analyze the
changes and regularities of land cover patterns in these metropolitan areas between 2000 and 2018. Then, we will use
remote sensing image data to construct a more reasonable evaluation system of ecological environment quality index
according to different urban land cover types, so as to obtain the final index of ecological quality of each metropolitan
area and its evolution direction.
Figure 2. Classified images of land use, using the Barcelona metropolitan area as an example in 2018.
(1)
Where: ρMIR and ρNIR are the reflectances in the red and near-infrared bands, respectively.
Based on the above analysis, we decided to use NDVI and NDBI to determine the proportion of land use environmental
quality index. MODIS data (MOD13Q1 (6)) can correlate remote sensing image data with a resolution of 250m. The
2000 data starts on February 18, 2000 and ends on December 18. 2012, 2016 and 2018 started on January 1 and ended on
December 19, with a time interval of 16 days for each set of images. Among them, the data of NDVI can be obtained
directly, but NDBI needs to be calculated by band data:
In order to distinguish winter and summer, we delineate January, February, and March as winter, and July, August, and
September as summer. We extract the NDVI images in these months. In order to keep it consistent, the NDBI data also
needs to do the same. The specific dates of each group of images are shown in Table 2.
After obtaining all the image data, we calculated the difference between the average NDVI and the average NDBI of the
metropolitan area each year using ArcGIS. The 11 types of reclassified land in each metropolitan area were then
segmented to extract the difference between NDVI and NDBI for each type of land. We repeat the above steps for these
four years. Finally, we homogenized the obtained values, and set the minimum value to 0.05 and the maximum value to
0.95. The results presented in Table 3 are the assignment of the ecological environment quality proportion of each type
of land in each region.
Ultimately, we can use formula (2) to assess the annual eco-environmental quality index for each metropolitan area.
(2)
Table 3. The weight distribution of ecological environment quality of various types of land in major metropolitan areas.
Figure 3. Changes in land use area in ten European metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2018 (1-Continuous built-up area, 2-
Discontinuous built-up area, 3-Industrial land, 4-Transportation land, 5-Mine, dump and construction sites , 6-Leisure land,
7-Cropland, 8-Woodland, 9-Grassland, 10-Barren land, 11-Water bodies.)
It is not difficult to see that a large part of the built-up area in the study area is discontinuous, it is about half the size of
the croplands. But the difference is that the area of discontinuous construction land has experienced 4 growths, from
15986km2 to 16811km2. It and the croplands are the most prominent land use in the European metropolitan area in terms
of area, and in fact, they also have a larger EQI weight, while in regulating the climate, they play the opposite role.
The other land areas are much smaller than the previous two, the largest being no more than 5000 km2. Among them,
grassland accounts for the largest proportion, and it has been showing an increasing trend, but the area with the fastest
increase is industrial land, which has increased by about 1.5% in 18 years. At the same time, the slow-expanding land
also includes transportation land, recreational land and water bodies. Both Mine, dump and construction sites and
woodland areas decreased, but Mine, dump and construction sites saw a significant increase in 2006. Furthermore, the
continuum of urban land and wasteland with the smallest EQI coefficients has seen little change over the years, even
though it experienced a small shrinkage in 2006.
Figure 5. Eco-environmental quality index of ten metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2018.
4. CONCLUSION
This paper uses CLC land cover data and night light demarcation to analyze the changing process of land occupation
patterns in ten major metropolitan areas in Europe from 2000 to 2018, and based on MODIS satellite remote sensing
images, establishes a model suitable for different regions in different periods. The Eco-Environmental Quality Index
(EQI) evaluation system, the evolution of their EQI was studied.
In major European metropolitan areas, arable land remains the predominant form of land occupation, but its area has
been declining for nearly two decades. The second is discontinuous construction land, which, in contrast to the former,
has been expanding. Other land areas are much smaller than the previous two. Among them, grassland has always shown
a growing trend, and the fastest growing area is industrial land, while the slow-expanding land includes transportation
land, leisure land and water bodies.
The croplands of each metropolitan area still occupy the most important position, and its area is reduced without
exception. With the exception of Barcelona, there are metropolitan areas that are comparable to the field area with
discontinuous built-up land, and with the exception of Naples, the area is growing. The proportion of forest land with
high EQI assignments is also notable in the two metropolises located in Spain, both of which have experienced varying
degrees of shrinkage. Industrial land also occupies a certain proportion in European metropolitan areas, and its area has
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