FUTURES: Multilevel Simulations of Emerging Urban-Rural Landscape Structure Using a Stochastic Patch-Growing Algorithm

We present a multilevel modeling framework for simulating the emergence of landscape spatial structure in urbanizing regions using a combination of field-based and object-based representations of land change. The FUTure Urban-Regional Environment Simulation (FUTURES) produces regional projections of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2013-07, Vol.103 (4), p.785-807
Main Authors: Meentemeyer, Ross K., Tang, Wenwu, Dorning, Monica A., Vogler, John B., Cunniffe, Nik J., Shoemaker, Douglas A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Algorithms
algoritmo de acrecentamiento regional
Area development
basado en objeto
Consumption
Development
Environment
Errors
Farmlands
fragmentación
fragmentation
Jurisdiction
Land
land change model
Land cover
Land development
Land use
Land use change
Landscape
Landscape architecture
Landscapes
Methods, Models, and GIS
Metropolitan areas
Modeling
modelo de cambio de la tierra
no estacionalidad
nonstationarity
North Carolina
object-based
Per capita
region growing algorithm
Rural areas
Simulation
Simulations
Spatial analysis
U.S.A
Urbanization
区域成长演算法
土地变迁模型
基于对象
碎裂化
非僵固化
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Summary:We present a multilevel modeling framework for simulating the emergence of landscape spatial structure in urbanizing regions using a combination of field-based and object-based representations of land change. The FUTure Urban-Regional Environment Simulation (FUTURES) produces regional projections of landscape patterns using coupled submodels that integrate nonstationary drivers of land change: per capita demand, site suitability, and the spatial structure of conversion events. Patches of land change events are simulated as discrete spatial objects using a stochastic region-growing algorithm that aggregates cell-level transitions based on empirical estimation of parameters that control the size, shape, and dispersion of patch growth. At each time step, newly constructed patches reciprocally influence further growth, which agglomerates over time to produce patterns of urban form and landscape fragmentation. Multilevel structure in each submodel allows drivers of land change to vary in space (e.g., by jurisdiction), rather than assuming spatial stationarity across a heterogeneous region. We applied FUTURES to simulate land development dynamics in the rapidly expanding metropolitan region of Charlotte, North Carolina, between 1996 and 2030, and evaluated spatial variation in model outcomes along an urban-rural continuum, including assessments of cell- and patch-based correctness and error. Simulation experiments reveal that changes in per capita land consumption and parameters controlling the distribution of development affect the emergent spatial structure of forests and farmlands with unique and sometimes counterintuitive outcomes.
ISSN:0004-5608
2469-4452
1467-8306
2469-4460
DOI:10.1080/00045608.2012.707591