Forecasting Urban Land Use Change Based on Cellular Automata and the PLUS Model

Abstract

Nowadays, cities meet numerous sustainable development challenges in facing growing urban populations and expanding urban areas. The monitoring and simulation of land use and land-cover change have become essential tools for understanding and managing urbanization. This paper interprets and predicts the expansion of seven different land use types in the study area, using the PLUS model, which combines the Land use Expansion Analysis Strategy (LEAS) and the CA model, based on the multi-class random patch seed (CARS) model. By choosing a variety of driving factors, the PLUS model simulates urban expansion in the metropolitan area of Hangzhou. The accuracy of the simulation, manifested as the kappa coefficient of urban land, increased to more than 84%, and the kappa coefficient of other land use types was more than 90%. To a certain extent, the PLUS model used in this study solves the CA model’s deficiencies in conversion rule mining strategy and landscape dynamic change simulation strategy. The results show that various types of land use changes obtained using this method have a high degree of accuracy and can be used to simulate urban expansion, especially over short periods.