Euroscanner: A Simulation Model for Land Use Change in Europe

The present generation of proprietary geographical information systems (GIS) can be used to support strategic planning processes in several ways. GIS are able to store, manage and analyse the enormous amount of data needed and they are able to provide facilities to visualise the data from a wide range of perspectives including those of different interest groups and stakeholders involved in particular planning applications. However, proprietary systems do not usually provide any applied modelling functionality and for this we require more intelligent GIS that have modelling capability available either through direct or indirect coupling ( Birkin et al., 1996). In order to simulate land use change, it is necessary to maximise the GIS capabilities for data storage, manipulation and display whilst simultaneously using a statistical or mathematical modelling software ‘engine’ to undertake the prediction functions. Such a model, that can be used to simulate the effects of autonomous or planned developments, is outlined in this chapter, The model is called EuroScanner because it has been designed to be applicable across different parts of Europe. This chapter explains how it works whilst examples of national and regional applications are contained in the two chapters that follow. We begin by reviewing alternative approaches to modelling land use in Section 16.2 and then explain the structure of the EuroScanner system and identify some of its characteristic features in Section 16.3. Section 16.4 introduces the categories of land use data used in the model, the constraints that are used to ensure consistency at regional level and the concept of suitability mapping.