Application of clustering analysis to land use zoning of coastal region in Jiangsu Province

Land use zoning is an important aspect of comprehensive land use planning, and is also the embodiment and implementation of land use structure arrangement. The aim of this paper is to provide theoretical direction for land use and the future development of coastal region in Jiangsu Province. Considering the situation and characteristics of land us of coastal region in Jiangsu Province, according to the evaluation indicators of China’s Main Functional Regions, this paper established evaluation indicator system for land use zoning through selecting three first class indicators (resource and environment carrying capacity, current exploiting density and development potential) and twelve second class indicators. Then systematic clustering analysis was made on the 20 administrative units of coastal region in Jiangsu Province by using SPSS. According to the practical situation and exploiting extent of the coastal region, it was divided into four sub-regions: Optimized development region, which includes Lianyungang Ciry, Nantong City and Yancheng City. Coastal potential region, which includes Rudong County, Dafeng City and Dongtai City. Important development region, which includes Haian County, Qidong County, Rugao County, Tongzhou City and Haimen City. General development region, includes other nine counties. At last, the main problems and future development direction in land use for each sub-regions were put forward according to the similarity and discrepancy among different regions. The results indicate that land use zoning based on evaluation indicators of China’s Main Functional Regions are very important to regional land use practice and structure arrangement.