The Demarcation of Urban Development Boundary Based on the Maxent-CA Model: A Case Study of Wuxi in China

Abstract

With the rapid development of urbanization, the demarcation of the urban development boundary (UDB) is of great practical significance to curb the disorderly spread of urban land, avoid losing control of urban development space, and build a barrier to green development space. In this paper, we propose a method to support the demarcation of the UDB by combining the Maxent model and the cellular automata (CA) model. This approach comprehensively considers the relationship between urban construction suitability, neighborhood effect, spatial constraint, and random interference based on a spatio-temporal dynamic simulation. This contributes to the analysis of the driving mechanism and distribution pattern of urban expansion. According to the principle of scale expansion and centralization, the simulation result is modified to demarcate the UDB. The following conclusions are drawn: the Maxent-CA model can intuitively reflect the driving mechanism and accurately simulate urban expansion in specific cities, which contributes to demarcating the UDB. Considering that this method fully embodies the principle of combining top-down and bottom-up approaches in the demarcation of UDB, we argue that the Maxent-CA model is of vital importance for the sustainable development of the living environment and is of great reference value for territorial spatial planning.