Fractal Study of Urban Road Tortuous under the Influence of Water Environment

Human civilization was born on the banks of great rivers, so river waters have always had a profound influence on urban development. Thus focusing on the structure of urban road networks, and taking Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, as an example, this paper analyzes the influence of urban water environment on the tortuousness of its road, based on the method of counting box dimensions in fractal theory. In this regard, we propose the concept of urban road “tortuous dimension,” identify all the water contours and road tortuous points, and then calculate the fractional dimensional values of urban water space and road tortuous fractional dimensional values, respectively, based on the least squares fitting. Through the analysis of the calculation results, it is concluded that (1) the fractional dimensional values of water space (D_s) in Wuhan is 1.53, indicating that there is a fractal and the water system structure is more complex; (2) the double scale phenomenon of the tortuous dimension of the road in Wuhan has appeared, and the overall road tortuous fractional dimensional values (D_q) has reached 1.27, indicating that the urban road is more tortuous due to the water environment; and (3) by comparing the fractional dimensional values of water space (D_s) and the overall road tortuous fractional dimensional values (D_q), the first scale of road tortuous fractional dimensional values (D_q1), the second scale of road tortuous fractional dimensional values (D_q2) the relationship between fractal value. Indicating that the existence of water in urban space has a certain impact on road tortuousness, especially the (D_s) is close to the (D_q2), indicating that the tortuousnes of the road mainly occurs in the urban waterfront area.