Biophysical and system approaches for simulating land-use change

Land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) projects have inspired researchers to examine complex land-use change systems and develop land-use change models. Various land-use change models have been utilized to simulate land-use change; however, no biophysical approach that can identify material and energy flows in a land-use change system exists. Although spatial system modeling, based on the systems approach, can simulate interactions between natural environments and socio-economic systems, and verify hypotheses and theories regarding land-use change and socio-economic metabolism; it has not received much attention due to its difficulties in dealing with spatial interactions and integrating different software programs. This study presents a procedure that uses Geographical Information System (GIS) in modeling a spatial system to overcome methodological disadvantages of spatial system modeling. To simulate land-use change, an example is utilized to demonstrate the capability of Model Builder in GIS software. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.