The impacts of spatial resolutions on global urban-related change analyses and modeling

Xia Li; Guangzhao Chen; Yongping Zhang; Le Yu; Zhenrong Du; Guohua Hu; Xiaojuan Liu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.105660

The impacts of spatial resolutions on global urban-related change analyses and modeling

iScience. 2022 Nov 23;25(12):105660. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105660. eCollection 2022 Dec 22.

Authors

Xia Li¹, Guangzhao Chen^{2

3}, Yongping Zhang^{4

5}, Le Yu^{6

7}, Zhenrong Du⁶, Guohua Hu¹, Xiaojuan Liu⁸

Affiliations

¹ Key Lab. of Geographic Information Science (Ministry of Education), School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Rd, Shanghai 200241, P.R. China.
² Division of Landscape Architecture, Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
³ Institute of Future Cities, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR 999077, China.
⁴ School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Yuhangtang Road 866, Hangzhou 310058, China.
⁵ ZJU-CMZJ Joint Lab on Data Intelligence and Urban Future, Zhejiang University, Yuhangtang Road 866, Hangzhou 310058, China.
⁶ Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
⁷ Ministry of Education Ecological Field Station for East Asian Migratory Birds, Beijing 100084, China.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Spatial-temporal Big Data Analysis and Application of Natural Resources in Megacities (Ministry of Natural Resources), School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, 500 Dongchuan Rd, Shanghai 200241, P.R. China.

Abstract

Various global land use/land cover (LULC) products have been developed to drive land-relevant climate and hydrological models for environmental assessments. However, systematic studies remain scarce that assess the uncertainties of using these products. By using a total of 16 commonly used global LULC products, we find a logarithm law of upscaling with the spatial resolution. The law reveals spatial details of urban features will be majorly distorted when using LULC products with coarser resolutions. A tipping point of the law around the 30-m resolution was identified by additional analysis of the 1-m and 10-m local land use dataset. Through the example of assessing crop production loss, we further find that most of these products will yield a significant underestimation of crop production losses, globally and locally. We conclude that the underestimated urban land rooted in most of these products would cause vital impacts on global change analyses and modeling.

Keywords: Agricultural science; Earth sciences; Earth-surface processes; Land use.