Integrating Cellular Automata and Regional Dynamics Using Gis

The evolution of cities at an urban-regional scale reflects complex relationships between ways in which urban structure develops in response to local decisions involving land development which is set within the more aggregate pattern of urban and regional structure. There is a mutual interaction between physical development and the urban hierarchy which is not often accounted for in the new wave of cellular models that have appeared in the last ten years. This chapter describes an implementation of a simulation model that is based on integrating these local and regional dynamics. We call it the

Dynamic Settlement Simulation Model (DSSM)

and we develop the integration using two different cell-based modelling techniques: cellular automata (CA) and raster GIS. The model is implemented using an object-oriented programming approach, and after we describe its rudiments, albeit briefly, we show its application to real data from Chiang Mai, a major city in Thailand. Finally, this chapter indicates how the model can be used as a part of a spatial decision support system (SDSS) generating predictive outcomes that represent possibilities for implementing predictive and scenario-based applications in urban and regional planning and related fields.