This study is based on the continuous spatial data of population density in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020 in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and analyzes the spatial evolution characteristics, which lays the foundation for analyzing the change of disaster-bearing bodies in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Land use data are from the Resource and Environment Science Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (https://www.resdc.cn/), and the spatial distribution of China's population in kilometers grid dataset has a resolution of 1km. The dataset reflects the detailed spatial distribution of the population across the country. The data is of raster data type, and each raster represents the number of population within the grid range (1 km2), the unit is person/km2, and the data format is gird.
China's spatial distribution of population kilometer grids in the process of data processing, firstly, to calculate the weights of the distribution of the population of the type of land use, the nighttime light brightness, and the density of the settlements, and then on the basis of standardized processing of the influence weights of the above three aspects, to calculate the weights of the distribution of the population. The total weight of each county-level administrative unit is calculated on the basis of standardized processing of the above three influencing weights, and then on the basis of calculating the proportion of the population in the unit weights of each county-level administrative unit, raster spatial calculations are applied to spatialize the population by combining the population number on the unit weights with the total weight distribution map.
Based on the function of ArcGIS “Extract by Mask”, we input the vector surface file and population distribution raster file of the study area to get the population distribution data of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River under study.
The population of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is mainly concentrated along the Yangtze River and the Taihu Lake Basin, in which Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou are the most concentrated in the distribution of a wider area; in addition, the population density of Nanjing and its surrounding areas, Hefei City, and the population density of Anqing City, Chizhou City, Xuancheng City, and other cities within the province of Anhui, which have a relatively small population density. This shows that the population density is larger in the lower Yangtze River Delta region, which from another side can reflect the faster urbanization development in the region and the wider range of urban areas.
From the time process, the spatial distribution of population density in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River shows a trend of increasing concentration, with the population density in urban centers getting higher and higher, and the population concentrating in the urban areas; the population density in townships and rural areas around the cities is decreasing significantly, which has a close relationship with the rapid development of the urbanization of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in the past 20 years.
| # | number | name | type |
| 1 | 2021YFC3000100 | Lower Yangtze River Flood Disaster Integration and Control and Emergency De-risking Technology and Equipment | National key R & D plan |
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CSTR:11738.11.NCDC.NHRI.DB6768.2025
10.12072/ncdc.nhri.db6768.2025