ABSTRACT
Since 1980s, Pearl River Delta (PRD) region of China has witnessed rapid urbanization and industrialization. Driven by the rapid urbanization and industrialization, the traditional land use pattern dominated by agricultural land has changed significantly by a rapid expansion of urban land and a huge loss of arable land Those changes inevitably affect the regional land surface environmental conditions. Therefore, many researchers took the PRD region to study its land use changes (Li 2004, Yan 2006, Zhang 2003 and Zhou 2005) and their environmental effects (Liu 2006 and Qian 2005). Results implied that the PRD region has been undergoing significant changes, but there were interior differences for the PRD region due to different natural and socio-economic conditions between cities.
