Landscape pattern analysis of the urban forest and green network structure in the Pudong district of Shanghai, China

Introduction: Urbanization has altered the natural landscape in the world. The urban expansion has been occurring more rapidly than ever before in China. Objective: To analyze the urban forest landscape pattern and ecological network structure in the Pudong district in Shanghai, China. Materials and methods: The study area covers 553 km(2), including 253 km(2) of built-up area. Using Landsat 7 2008TM, 2007 Spot Image, Google Earth and city maps, the structural characteristics were analyzed. The landscape patterns of the urban forest and green network structure were interpreted using ArcGIS Software. Results and discussion: The area of the urban forest patches (>900 m(2)) and the built-up area in the district were 5.15 % and 5.78 % respectively. The area of the green corridor network was 80.27 km(2) while the density was 1.99 km.km(-2). The linkage of the green network was 1.30, circuitry was 0.19 and connectivity 0.47. The tree canopy coverage was 7.02 % in the entire study area, and 10.27 % in the built-up area. The tree canopy coverage can reach to 8.68 % similar to 9.79 % in the total study area, and 11.49 % similar to 12.3 % in the built-up area. Conclusion: The green network has been constructed, but it was not well designed, so it is necessary to improve its structure. The existing trees cannot modify the forest environment for all the urban forest. Planting more trees is feasible to increase the tree canopy coverage.