Impervious Surface Expansion: A Key Indicator for Environment and Urban Agglomeration—A Case Study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area by Using Landsat Data

Impervious surface (IS) is a key indicator to measure the urbanization process and ecological environment. Many studies have observed an urbanization process based on IS at the city scale. Understanding the changes in the IS over a period at a regional level offers an alternative and effective approach to characterize and quantify the spatial process of urban agglomeration. This study focuses on the urban agglomeration of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) by utilizing the sensor-based Landsat data during 1987-2017 and investigates the spatiotemporal distribution of IS expansion at both regional and city scales. The modified linear spectral mixture analysis (MLSMA) method is used to extract the IS of the GBA. Then, the IS mapping accuracies were assessed after comparison with high-resolution historical data. The spatiotemporal and directional changes of IS surfaces for GBA are analyzed by using Gravity Center (GC) and Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE). Finally, Shannon’s Diversity Index (SHDI) is used to analyze the overall characteristics of landscape level, and the Patch Density (PD) and Landscape Shape Index (LSI) are used to describe the characteristics of different classes of the IS. The results show that the IS of the whole region experienced rapid and massive expansion during the past 30 years and exhibited a distinct characteristic along the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and the coastline. Furthermore, the IS area increased rapidly in the PRD, while it is relatively stable in Hong Kong and Macao. We believe that the findings of this study can help policy makers to better understand and maintain the sustainable development of the GBA