Abstract
This paper introduces an individual-based simulation model to study the land development process in San Diego by using multi-agent simulation (MAS) software, where the urban expansion activities are realized through the construction behaviors of three major types of developer agents (residential/industrial/commercial). Except compiling codes for the interaction activities between different kinds of agents and their surrounding environment, this model also includes the analysis function of urban renewal into the simulation process. And in order to find a suitable land policy for urban growth management in San Diego, this paper conducts a prediction research about future land development in three different types of administration scenarios, and evaluates their simulation layouts from two separate perspectives: visual observation and geometrical calculation. After that, following the suggestions of comprehensive plan in 2050 and smart growth principles, this paper proposes a series of measures for the improvement of current land management, and verifies their effectiveness through the comparison research between optimized scenario and other three administration policies mentioned above. Also, for the purpose of increasing simulation layout’s consistency with the real world, several possible ways are put forward to optimize the modeling procedures at the end of this paper.
Highlights
We have set up a simulation model for urban land development in San Diego by using multi-agent simulation (MAS) software, and conducted research to study its functional mechanism as well as future development trend through the interactive activities among four types of agents and their surrounding environment
After having determined the agents’ behavior rules and parameter settings via logistic regression, entropy calculation and other statistic analysis methods, we carried out a verification research to simulate the land development process from 2008 to 2014, and examined its consistency with the reality by making use of both point-by-point and geometrical calculation methods
We designed three types of administration scenarios following the land management experiences in real world, and compared their differences from two separate perspectives: visual observation and geometrical calculation, which lead to a conclusion that modifying the scope of constructionrestricted areas cannot help to solve the existing problems of urban development
Summary
Over the past few decades, the major cities in the world, especially those developing countries have gone through a radical change in both physical and social. Due to limited land resources, such a huge construction need will exacerbate the existing conflicts between nature preservation and urban development, and bring about negative impacts on maintaining the ecological balance and setting up a healthy living environment for urban dwellers In considering of this matter, how to predict the quantity and spatial distribution trend accurately for urban land development has become one of the most important issues in related research areas; and only if the government can draw up reasonable as well as practical management policies based on the projection results, can urban system ensure people with a sustainable development mode in the future. The traditional “top-down” modeling methods which set up simulation research with static, homogeneous environment assumptions cannot fully represent those mutual influences brought by individual activities (Benenson, 1998; Runjiao et al, 2016) It may cause relatively higher deviations when researchers are trying to use it to explain the internal operation mechanisms or to predict the future development situations for urban land system. For the purpose of verifying the effectiveness of ABM(Agent-base Model) technology in urban system research, this paper will use ABM software to build up a simulation model for San Diego’s land development and organize its research process as follows: firstly, it will come up with a detailed design of modeling structure and agents’ behavior rules after summarizing the research experiences of previous studies; it will apply this model to simulating the land expansion activities as well as urban renewal process from 2008 to 2014; after that, it will compare the differences between simulation layout and actual land use pattern through both observation and calculation approach; as the accuracy of this modeling research has been verified, it will continue to predict the land development trend for 2050 in three different simulation scenarios and set up an ideal planning strategy based on their comparison results; when coming to the end of this paper, it will conclude with a general discussion on model achievements and its limitations, and propose several possible guidelines for the improvements of future research
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