Impact of economic development on wetlands in Hangzhou Bay Industrial Belt

Based on Landsat TM images in 2005 and urban planning data of 2005–2020 in Hangzhou Bay Industrial Belt, this paper studied the potential risk of the planned urban construction land extension to the wetlands by employing a GIS spatial analysis method. The results show that: (1) The wetland resources are widely distributed and diverse, with a proximal distribution to present urban construction lands spatially. (2) From 2005 to 2020, the urban construction lands will expand vastly and rapidly, and will take over large areas of wetlands that are mostly the ponds and the aquiculture water areas in the reclamation areas of Hangzhou Bay south coast. Moreover, this change will be spatially uneven obviously, e.g., the most serious recessions of the wetlands are concentrated in Ningbo city, Hangzhou city and Cixi city. (3) Overall, the potential risk to wetlands is very high, and will keep increasing with the trend of urbanization. (4) The quantity and spatial pattern of the planning urban construction land have substantial impacts on the wetland loss. Therefore, some policies and regulations are suggested to coordinate the relationship between urban economic development and wetland resource protection such as adjusting the construction land planning, compensating for wetland occupation as well as constructing wetland parks.