Study On Modeling Urban Growth Using CA (Cellular Automata)

As the world's urban landscapes rapidly increase in size, valuable natural resources and open spaces are being diminished. Currently, researchers are developing new techniques for accurately predicting where and how urban landscapes are going to grow in order to manage for the associated problems. This research examines one of these new techniques for predicting urban growth that of cellular automation (CA) simulation modeling.The thesis consists of following sections. Firstly, the author introduces some concepts, qualities and process about the theory of complex system, and reviews the development of urban model. Because of the conventional models'disadvantages, the urban CA model is employed understanding the urban future development on the context of complex system.Today, the application of CA in urban modeling is a new fields of making model among the geographic system. CA as an important methodology has a bright tomorrow for researching the complex system of city and region. Cities exhibit several of the significant characteristics of complexity, including fractal dimensionality and self-similarity across scales, self-organization, and emergence. The spatial evolution of urban system can be seen as an aggregation which results from numerous locally made decisions. Secondly, particularly states concepts, constitution, characteristics and classification of the basic CA and the possibility and inevitability of cellular automata for urban simulation. The inevitability is mainly the advantages of CA and the faults of traditional model. The possibility explains how to modify basic CA (Cell-states, Lattice, Neighbor, etc.) for the practical application. Thirdly, the author further introduces a loose coupling urban CA model (SLEUTH), including its data requrirements, growth coefficients, transition rules and calibration methods. A case study is used to verify SLEUTH model. Fourthly, based on the results of simulation, the author analyzes the calibration of model and the urban predicting map.The conclusion is employed for the planer and policy-maker. Above all, the study is successful by the objects achieved. However, for some unfavorable factors, the application of SLEUTH exist some limitation. Some explanation given can contribute to the problem. Finally, the future researchs are proposed. This value of application is to help the policy-maker of urban development to understand the city's characteristic of development.