Spatiotemporal impacts of metro network structure on land use change

Numerous studies have presented compelling findings regarding the favorable influence exerted by the construction of metro systems on the development of land use along the routes. However, the effects of metro network structure on land use change, especially the long-term dynamic effects, remain uncertain. To address this gap, this research utilizes land use coverage data and metro network data from Wuhan, China, spanning the period from 2014 to 2019. A complex network model is employed to analyze changes in the metro network structure, and the GTWR model is employed to investigate the impact of the of metro network structure on land use change. The results indicate that metro construction effectively stimulates land use change along the routes, predominantly leading to the conversion of non-construction land into construction land. Global accessibility, degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality, within the metro network structure attributes demonstrate significant positive effects on land use change, and these effects exhibit considerable spatiotemporal non-stationarity. Additionally, built environment factors surrounding metro stations, such as population density, plot ratio, street intersection density, and the quantity of bus stops, also exhibit notably spatiotemporal effects on land use change. These findings indicate that government agencies and urban planners should concentrate on optimizing the distribution of the urban metro network to improve its overall structural efficiency. When planning the construction of the metro network, careful attention should be paid to the built environment near the stations to effectively facilitate land use development in the vicinity.