Agent-Based Urban Land Markets: Agent's Pricing Behavior, Land Prices and Urban Land Use Change

We present a new bilateral agent-based land market model, which moves beyond previous work by explicitly modeling behavioral drivers of land-market transactions on both the buyer and seller sides; formation of bid prices (of buyers) and ask prices (of sellers); and the relative division of the gains from trade from the market transactions. We analyze model output using a series of macro-scale economic and landscape pattern measures, including land rent gradients estimated using simple regression models. We first demonstrate that our model replicates relevant theoretical results of the traditional Alonso/Von Thünen model (structural validation). We then explore how urban morphology and land rents change as the relative market power of buyers and sellers changes (i.e., we move from a 'sellers' market' to a 'buyers' market'). We demonstrate that these strategic price dynamics have differential effects on land rents, but both lead to increased urban expansion

Um paradigma alternativo para o ordenamento do território e o turismo em paisagens costeiras: as métricas espaciais como indicadores para ordenamento e o turismo em paisagens costeiras

Coastal urbanization dynamics in the Algarve are intimately related with tourism, which dominates the regional economy. We present part of the results of a research project in the coastal landscapes of Algarve, focusing on land use and land change, particularly urban sprawl around Faro, one of the highest concentrations of tourism resorts in the region. We performed a diachronic analysis (1990-2000) based on Corine Land Cover data. We combined contingence tables and landscape metrics. A parsimonious suite of these spatial metrics were selected in order to be easily combined as to derive results with a straightforward interpretation, and moving windows technique facilitated the task in identifying gradients of landscape heterogeneity. Land use planning must pay more attention to tourism, adopting combined spatial approaches, monitor initiatives, and do better plans. Metrics are good indicators for this purpose.As dinâmicas urbanas no litoral do Algarve estão intimamente ligadas ao turismo, que domina a economia regional. Apresentamos uma parte dos resultados de um projecto de investigação sobre as alterações do uso do solo nas paisagens costeiras do Algarve, nomeadamente na dispersão urbana em volta de Faro, uma das zonas com maior concentração de “resorts” na região. Desenvolvemos uma análise diacrónica (1990-2000) baseada no Corine Land Cover combinando tabelas de contingência com métricas da paisagem. Foi seleccionado um conjunto parcimonioso de métricas facilitando o seu uso conjunto e gerando resultados que fossem claramente interpretados; a ténica “janelas móveis” facilitou a identificação de gradientes de heterogeneidade da paisagem. O ordenamento do território deve prestar mais atenção ao turismo, adoptando abordagens espaciais, monitorizando iniciativas, planeando melhor. As métricas constituem bons indicadores para este fiminfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Model-based Transportation Performance: A Comparative Framework and Literature Synthesis, Research Report 11-09

In an era of limited resources and a proliferation of data, there is increasing pressure to conduct careful evaluations of the economic, environmental, and equity effects of investments and policies that influence transportation and land-use systems. This report compares performance measures recommended to achieve desired goals and reviews the literature to determine the degree to which these measures have been implemented and what they indicate about the relative effectiveness of land-use, transit, and automobile pricing policies. Despite the variation in methods and performance measures implemented in the studies reviewed for this report, the synthesis of study results suggests the direction and relative magnitude of change resulting from different types of policies, as well as potential biases introduced by omitting the representation of the land-use and transportation interaction. Overall, the performance measures indicate that carefully designed transit, land-use, and automobile pricing policies may improve travel, economic, environmental, and equity conditions for communities. However, transit and peak-period automobile pricing policies can, in some situations, lead to negative performance outcomes across some or all measures, as illustrated in studies that explicitly represent the land-use and transportation interaction

Topology, homogeneity and scale factors for object detection: application of eCognition software for urban mapping using multispectral satellite image

The research scope of this paper is to apply spatial object based image analysis (OBIA) method for processing panchromatic multispectral image covering study area of Brussels for urban mapping. The aim is to map different land cover types and more specifically, built-up areas from the very high resolution (VHR) satellite image using OBIA approach. A case study covers urban landscapes in the eastern areas of the city of Brussels, Belgium. Technically, this research was performed in eCognition raster processing software demonstrating excellent results of image segmentation and classification. The tools embedded in eCognition enabled to perform image segmentation and objects classification processes in a semi-automated regime, which is useful for the city planning, spatial analysis and urban growth analysis. The combination of the OBIA method together with technical tools of the eCognition demonstrated applicability of this method for urban mapping in densely populated areas, e.g. in megapolis and capital cities. The methodology included multiresolution segmentation and classification of the created objects.Comment: 6 pages, 12 figures, INSO2015, Ed. by A. Girgvliani et al. Akaki Tsereteli State University, Kutaisi (Imereti), Georgi

Trend Analysis of Las Vegas Land Cover and Temperature Using Remote Sensing

The Las Vegas urban area expanded rapidly during the last two decades. In order to understand the impacts on the environment, it is imperative that the rate and type of urban expansion is determined. Remote sensing is an efficient and effective way to study spatial change in urban areas and Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) is a valuable technique to retrieve subpixel landcover information from remote sensing images. In this research, urban growth trends in Las Vegas are studied over the 1990 to 2010 period using images from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP). The SMA model of TM pixels is calibrated using high resolution NAIP classified image. The trends of land cover change are related to the land surface temperature trends derived from TM thermal infrared images. The results show that the rate of change of various land covers followed a linear trend in Las Vegas. The largest increase occurred in residential buildings followed by roads and commercial buildings. Some increase in vegetation cover in the form of tree cover and open spaces (grass) is also seen and there is a gradual decrease in barren land and bladed ground. Trend analysis of temperature shows a reduction over the new development areas with increased vegetation cover especially, in the form of golf courses and parks. This research provides a useful insight about the role of vegetation in ameliorating temperature rise in arid urban areas

Agent-Based Urban Land Markets: Agent\'s Pricing Behavior, Land Prices and Urban Land Use Change

We present a new bilateral agent-based land market model, which moves beyond previous work by explicitly modeling behavioral drivers of land-market transactions on both the buyer and seller side; formation of bid prices (of buyers) and ask prices (of sellers); and the relative division of the gains from trade from the market transactions. We analyze model output using a series of macro-scale economic and landscape pattern measures, including land rent gradients estimated using simple regression models. We first demonstrate that our model replicates relevant theoretical results of the traditional Alonso/Von Th�nen model (structural validation). We then explore how urban morphology and land rents change as the relative market power of buyers and sellers changes (i.e., we move from a \'sellers\' market\' to a \'buyers\' market\'). We demonstrate that these strategic price dynamics have differential effects on land rents, but both lead to increased urban expansion.Location Choice, Urban Land Market, Agent-Based Computational Economics, Land Use, Land Rent Gradient, Spatial Simulation

Urban Atlas, land use modelling and spatial metric techniques

Recently, through the GMES program of ESA the Urban Atlas dataset was released. The Urban Atlas is providing pan-European comparable land use and land cover data for Large Urban Zones with more than 100.000 inhabitants as defined by the Urban Audit. The production of the various datasets started in 2009 and is expected to be completed by the end of 2011. At presently datasets for more than 150 urban areas have been released. Most importantly the datasets can be freely downloaded and distributed. The availability of such a huge dataset produced with the same standards will have a major impact on the development of urban transportation models and the comparative analysis of the urban areas across Europe. Combined with the data sets that will be developed from the various Census of population it could become the basis for the application of various models in the next ten years. In this paper two major themes are discussed. First, how the current state of art in urban modeling (behavioral, cellular automata and statistical) can use these models, what type of additional data might be needed and how these datasets can be combined with other data for developing land use transportation models. Second, spatial metric techniques are used to define indicators for the landscape that could be used for comparing the structure and the form of the various cities. In the last ten years there has been an increasing interest in applying spatial metric techniques analysis of urban environments, to examine unique spatial components of intra-and inter-city urban structure, as well as, the dynamics of change. The landscape perspective assumes abrupt transitions between individual patches that result in distinct edges. These measures provide a link between the detailed spatial structures that result from urban change processes. The spatial metric indicators were developed for several cities and are then used for a comparative study of city typologies and urban fabric characteristics.