AN OVERVIEW OF LU/GEC PROJECT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENERALIZED THÜNEN MODEL

Abstract

The land use phenomena is the basis for almost all global environmental problems at ground level such as desertification, deforestation, conservation of species and cultural heritages, polutions in developing countries; besides it has both natural and social scientific aspects because human activities are the principal driving forces causing land use changes. LUCC is the joint core project of IGBP and IHDP for ‘land use/cover change’. LU/GEC (Land Use for Global Environmental Conservation) is the largest LUCC-related project in Japan by NIES (National Ins. for Environmental Studies). The purpose is to construct land use prediction models in Asia-Pacific region by many teams of researchers. Phase I (1995.4-1998.3) has successfully finished with 5 original land use models. 4 of them consist of land use representation function f and economic growth function g. Ordinary linear regression and logistic function choice for f functional form showed poor performance in land use data. Konagaya (1997a, b, 1998) extended the normative Thunen model, the exact fundamental theory of land market, to be able to apply it to real land use ratio data. This new model (Generalized Thunen Model: GTM) improved explanatory performance and has a merit to give the intuitive picture of ‘movement of land use frontier’ a exact theoretical foundation, which enables us to predict the land use change in the future.