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Abstract
Spatio-temporal Modeling for Simulation of Landuse Scenarios
Track: Agriculture
Author(s): Tara Sharma
In this presentation we will describe the generation of agricultural landuse scenarios for the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. Based on user preferences for agricultural development in the region, as well as other socio-economic and environmental considerations, the scenarios are generated for the year 2040. Landuse conversions from the year 2000 to 2040 are modeled in decadal steps by integrating Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE) and Cellular Automata (CA) techniques within a GIS. MCE methods are used to determine the suitability of a land unit for different uses while CA transition rules provide dynamic suitability factors for landuse conversion at each time step of the simulation. The rules are updated at each time step in order to reflect the land dynamics of the previous step. The final landuse scenario generated is more realistic than that obtained by models which incorporate only land-based criteria of conversions as it is driven by the user-specified development factors and it represents a temporal evolution of the initial landuse.
This model will become part of QUEST - a computer simulation tool - that allows users to design alternate futures for Georgia Basin and explore their consequences, thus facilitating debate on regional sustainability.
Tara Sharma
University of British Columbia
Geography
1984 West Mall
Vancouver , British Columbia V6T 1Z2
Canada
Phone: 1-604-222-0958
Fax: 1-604-822-6150
E-mail: tara@geog.ubc.ca