The anthropogenic factors on urban growth: An empirical quantification in China

The rapid urbanization in China has caused significant urban land use changes and extensive urban growth these years. That has led to a dramatic decrease in arable land and would challenge the national food security. To understand the anthropogenic driving forces of urban growth and find out effective control methods, this study established the Hierarchical Liner Model (HLM) to explore the influence of such factors including society and economy, population, and industry development. On the base of factor analysis and HLM, the decomposition of the affecting factors for urban growth was performed, it visually shows that the social retail goods, public transit passengers, and nonagricultural populations significantly drove the urban growth in China; the tertiary industry development has weak effects on urban growth. By weighting the role of the anthropogenic factors on urban growth, some advices were given at last, and it could provide possible management options for the government to mitigate the excessive urban growth in the near future.