Assessment and analysis of soil resource quality losses on cultivated land in the process of urbanization

Based on remote sensing and GIS techniques, a long time series (1996－2006) of multi-source SPOT high spatial-resolution images was applied to extract accurately land use change information. Based on the information, soil resource quality index (SQI) was applied to assess and analyze the losses of soil quality in the rapid urbanization process of Hangzhou city. The results showed that Handzhou’s rapid urbanization process was at the cost of the serious losses of soil quality during the decade. In particular most of urban expansion took place in the high-quality soil area with the lost areas of fluvio-marine yellow loamy soil occupying 38.11% of the total losses. Of total losses, the lost areas of soil resource with the best degree of SQI occupied 43%, and the lost areas of farmland quality occupied 83.83%, with 45.86% farmland resource lost areas belonging to the best degree of SQI. The effective utilization and reasonable protection of soil resource during urban development has become a urgent problem to be solved.