Whole regions 191Kua+ Bra+Bar+Can•Cut•
Eas•Abe•Erz• Rah•Te g•Sap+Nan• Ott• Por•
Edm•Ula•Kag• Sdt+Rom+Chic+ Bam+
Ban*Lon*
Ber+
Sto+Sam•
Atl• Iqu•
Buc+
Phi+Nai+Bei*
Te h*
Mex Cai
Mos*
San*
Seo*
Predominant land cover of the urban-region ringPredominant land cover close (<10km) to the metro areaCropland Mixed woods
+ cropsWooded
areaSavanna Grassland DesertCroplandMixed woods+ cropsWoodedareaSavannaGrasslandDesertFigure 7.15Predominant land cover close to the metro area relative to land cover of
theurban-region ring. Built area was excluded from the estimates; probably in no
case would its inclusion change a result. Grassland includes pastureland; desert
includes desertified area. Cities in the diagonal band have the same land cover close
tothemetro area as across the urban-region ring as a whole. See Figure 7.2 caption.relative shortage of natural and/or agricultural land. For such cities, natural-
resource protection is ahigh priority.
Land cover near and far from metro areas
[R3]Most urban regions have the same predominant land cover close to the
metropolitan area as across the whole urban-region ring, and generally the larger the city
the more likely cropland predominates close to the metro area(Figure7. 15).
Acity size effect is evident. The prevalence of cropland close to large cities
means that urbanization outward is mainly on cropland. But since cropland
dominates most urban regions and is both near and far from the city, the loss
of cropland to urbanization would normally be of minimal importance. However,