A cellular automata model for the study of small urban areas
Nuno Norte Pinto · Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) · 2007
The study presented in this paper focus on the use of a cellular automata model for the simulation of land use change in small urban areas. It deals with important issues that were not fully considered so far regarding cell characteristics and problem size. The feasibility of using irregular cells was also assessed. This is believed to be an important development of CA models, as demographic and socioeconomic data is usually available for irregular census tracts. The calibration of the model was made through an optimization procedure based on a Particle Swarm algorithm. A series of theoretical test problems were produced to evaluate the behavior of the model and the calibration of its parameters. The model led to promising results indicating its ability for dealing with small urban areas. Also, the use of irregular cells has been shown to be feasible.