Impacts of transportation arteries on land use patterns in urban and rural areas: a comparative gradient analysis of Qixia district , Nanjing City, ChinaIntroductionThe objective of this study was to understand how the impacts of different transportation arteries in Qixia District of Nanjing City, China, affected land change over time. These areas have seen some of the most rapid urbanization and industrialization, as well as massive urban sprawl trends. Since outlying regions of urban areas are more likely to change terrain from a rural to an urban area, this area was suitable to be used as a study area. One of the major problems facing the expansion of the transportation network is that “by improving accessibility and facilitating the movement of people and goods, improved transportation systems accelerate the expansion of urban land and regional economic growth” (Runsen et al). This leads to a feedback loop in which humanity continues to turn more and more areas into urban areas. In this study, they attempt to use a gradient analysis of the study area as well as the distributions of land use changes and structures to determine if there is an effect on the impact of different types of transportation in the region. The main transport corridors studied were: railways, highways and motorways. Land directly adjacent to the transportation corridor was used to quantify changes in area characteristics. Data, Processing and Methods Since this study determined changes between the years 2000 and 2008, they acquired land use data based on historical Landsat TM satellite images and the sampling months for these years were between September and November for each year at a resolution of 30 x 30 meters...... middle of paper ......res and this can be used in other cities to try to see changes in other areas also. Works Cited Iacono, M., D. Levinson and A. El-Geneidy. “Models of transportation and land use change: a guide to the territory.” » Journal of Planning Literature 22.4 (2008): 323-40. Mothorpe, Chris, Andrew Hanson, and Kurt Schnier. “The Impact of Interstate Highways on Land Use Conversion.” The Annals of Regional Sciences 51.3 (2013): 833-70. Zhang, Runsen, Lijie Pu and Ming Zhu. “Impacts of transportation arteries on land use patterns in the urban-rural fringe: a comparative gradient analysis of Qixia District, Nanjing City, China.” Chinese Geographic Science 23.3 (2013): 378-88. Zhao, Liyuan and Zhong-Ren Peng. “LandSys: a land-use change agent-based cellular automaton model developed for transportation analysis.” Journal of Transport Geography 25 (2012): 35-49.