Recently, Hu Yinna, an associate professor from SHNU School of Environment, along with her collaborators, published a research paper titled "From dominant edge expansion to increasing infilling: the driving forces behind built-up area fragmentation in Chinese cities" in the journal npj Urban Sustainability, a publication under the Nature Group. The journal is dedicated to publishing high-impact papers in the field of urban sustainability. In 2024,it had an impact factor of 8.8, ranking 2ndin the urban studies category.
The study focuses on 366 Chinese cities from 1995 to 2018, systematically exploring the correlation between urban built-up area expansion and landscape fragmentation, as well as their driving mechanisms, aiming to provide scientific support for urban planning and ecological regulation at a macro scale. It recommends differentiated strategies for eastern, central, and western regions, as well as large, medium, and small cities, with eastern areas encouraged to promote infill urban renewal and central-western regions required to strictly limit leapfrog expansion. The study was led by Associate Professor Hu Yina from the SHNU School of Environment and Geographic Sciences, with Professor Peng Jian from Peking University as the corresponding author. The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42201102).
Source: Hu, Y., Hu, T., Xue, F., Peng, J. From dominant edge expansion to increasing infilling: the driving forces behind built-up area fragmentation in Chinese cities. npj Urban Sustainability, 2026, 6, 39. Access the paper by clicking https://doi.org/10.1038/s42949-026-00346-9.
