Abstract

As the metropolitan regions of North America continue to expand, there is a growing recognition of the need to forecast land use change and urbanization patterns over longer time frames so that regional environmental and hydrologic consequences can be forecast and the consequences of different development scenarios compared. Unfortunately there are obstacles to achieving such forecasting capability, including that of integration of spatial environmental/ hydrological modeling and spatial economic modeling, and the econometric problems associated with estimating spatial economic changes. Existing models of land use change fail to adequately incorporate the complex interactions between economic and environmental factors as a metropolitan region urbanizes. This chapter presents a discussion of some of the recognized difficulties in combining the relevant disciplines involved in producing accurate long-range forecasts of land use change. It also presents one possible approach to the development of a spatial land use change model.

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