Urban expansion inferenced by ecosystem production on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau

Abstract Assessments of changes in landscape patterns and functions during urban development need to factor urban fringes (UPs) as part of the overall social-environmental system, especially in regions with poor transportation systems where urban functions depend heavily on surrounding suburbs. In this study, we use net primary production (NPP) as an integrative measure to delineate UPs and to measure the expansion in 15 urban areas in the remote Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Using a logistic curve fitting model based on NPP to delineate differences between the UF and rural landscapes, we explore how NPP-inferred UF expansions may have changed with increase in urban population and the secondary and tertiary industrial production. The UF width (area) was 17.4 km (950.67 km 2 ) in 2000 but increased to 27.0 km (2289.06 km 2 ) in 2019 for Lhasa. For Xining, this was from 28.0 km (2461.76 km 2 ) to 36.0 km (4069.44 km 2 ) during 2000–2019. For the prefecture-level cities, the rate increased from 2–16 km (12.56–803.84 km 2 ) to 7–17 km (153.86–907.46 km 2 ). More importantly, the ratio between UF width and population during the five study periods showed a linear decreasing trend, but an exponential decrease with economic measures. The urban expansion due to population increase changed from 26 m in 2000 to 21 m in 2019 for every increase of 1000 residents, while the expansion due to economic changes was significantly reduced from 732 m per billion RMB (Ren Min Bi) in 2000 to 52 m per billion RMB in 2019. We confirm a hypothesis that the ratio of expansion of UFs was more dependent on economic growth in early stages of urbanization than in later stages, whereas urban population promoted expansions over the entire study period.