Spatial‐temporal specific neighbourhood rules for cellular automata land‐use modelling

Abstract

This paper explores the necessity of using spatial‐temporal specific neighbourhood rules for simulation of urban dynamics at a regional level with the help of a Cellular Automata (CA) land‐use model (Environment Explorer). Moreover, it explores a method for formulating these spatial‐temporal specific neighbourhood rules. Therein, spatial metrics originating from the field of landscape ecology prove to be very useful, in particular the so‐called enrichment factor. Analysis of historical data with the help of these spatial metrics revealed evidence of substantial differences in land‐use developments between time periods and regions, for example, differences that should be incorporated in land‐use models if applied on a more detailed regional scale. In a case study, micro‐scale land‐use data incorporated in a CA‐model were used to analyse and simulate the urban morphological changes over two time periods in four urban regions in the Netherlands. In this study, regional and time‐specific neighbourhood rules performed significantly better than a set of generic neighbourhood rules. In contrast, within current practice, most CA land‐use modelling makes use of only one uniform set of neighbourhood rules for performing both large area and regional scale land‐use simulations. This study questions this common practice and puts it into perspective. Moreover, it indicates some restrictions in the proposed regionalization of the neighbourhood rules; one which is particularly noteworthy is its time‐specific dependency of local developments and circumstances.