Evaluation on the natural suitability of urban human settlement environment using multisource data

With the degeneration of environment and acceleration of urbanization, urban human settlement environment has been in rapid change and attracted great attentions worldwide. Meanwhile the Quantitative evolution on the natural suitability of urban human settlement environment (NSUHSE) is essential for a better and powerful understanding of the urbanization process, such as the direction and pace of the urbanization. This paper uses multisource data, including DEM, meteorological data, vegetation cover data (Normal Differential Vegetation Index, NDVI), DMSP/OLS NTL data etc. to establish the NSUHSE model to quantitatively evaluate the natural suitability of urban human settlement environment in China. The results show that the NSUHSE of China decreases from southeast to northwest in general, urban area of China is concentrated in the area with moderate high NSUHSE which is an area of 415195 km² or 60.91% of the country´s total urban area. Moreover, NSUHSE has significant influence on urban distribution according to the correlation coefficient between NSUHSE and DMSP/OLS NTL data.