Abstract:

This paper pointed out that the alleged rapid increase of the information entropy of the land use structure in the urbanized areas should refer to the increase of the information entropy of the suburban land use structure in the urbanized areas. The obvious shift of the suburban land use structure towards the equilibrium direction during the period of urbanization leads to the increase of the information entropy of the suburban land use structure. Meanwhile the information entropy of the land use structure in urban built-up area has not increased. The proportion of various land use types in the urban built-up area during the period of urbanization is basically stable or enlarged on the residential areas, industrial and mining areas as well as the transportation land to some extent. This makes the information entropy of the land use structure in the urban built-up area basically remain unchanged or decrease somewhat. The local urbanized areas in the suburbs have made major contributions to the increase of the information entropy of the suburban land use structure. Data analysis shows that a great amount of suburban farmland is quickly transformed into urban construction land during the period of urbanization and the proportion of the urban construction land is highly and positively correlated with the information entropy of the suburban land use structure. It can be seen that the rapid increase of the urban construction land is the main reason for the increasing information entropy of the suburban land use structure. The analysis of entropy change indicates that the entropy of suburban system during the period of urbanization displays the same changing trend with the information entropy of the suburban land use structure, and both of them are greater than zero, which suggests that the suburban natural environments during the period of urbanization develop in a decline.

Key words: land use structure, urbanization area, the evolution of natural and geographical environments, information entropy, human-earth relationship