Project SLUCE: Spatial Land-Use Change and Ecological Effects at the Rural-Urban Interface: Agent-Based Modeling and Evaluation of Alternative Policies and Interventions

当前景观条件、文化价值和规范、政策规定和市场力量之间的复杂相互作用极大地限制了线性模型作为理解许多不同环境中人类和自然系统之间复杂相互作用的工具的实用性，特别是城市和农村地区之间的过渡区。 要制定政策和其他解决办法，尽量减少土地使用变化的负面生态影响，并引入可能的积极生态影响，就需要有预测和评价人类与生态系统之间复杂相互作用的工具。 为了具有一定的预测能力，这些工具应该描述个体家庭、企业和地方政府层面的土地利用决策的性质，并且应该允许对各种决策的生态影响进行评估。 这些工具应认识到城市边缘土地使用和管理决策的经济、政治和心理动机，以及未开发土地的销售效用。 该项目的重点是由一个多学科小组开发、评估和应用基于代理的土地利用和土地覆盖变化过程模型，并评估其与生态系统结构和功能的相互作用。 该项目的主要目标是：（1）开发城市边缘土地利用决策的基于主体的模型，（2）汇编密歇根州东南部从1950年到现在的时间序列空间土地利用和土地覆盖数据，（3）开发和应用与土地利用变化相关的生态结构和功能的空间数据、指标和模型，以及（4）评估政策和设计方案，以便在土地使用模式发生变化时维持生态系统的生存能力。 补充这一多学科小组的研究活动将是一套教育活动，包括正式纳入综合土地使用，决策和生态系统模型到两个“内容”类（如环境经济学、生态学、社会学和政策制定）和“方法”类（如复杂系统建模，地理信息系统，空间分析和遥感）。该项目产生的模型和工具将直接用于了解城市系统中的人类和自然景观动态，它们将有助于预测城乡结合部的生态变化模式。 由于该项目的重点是加强对推动土地使用决定的个人决策的理解，因此将加强制定和测试替代政策和干预措施的能力，以减少环境成本并提高环境效益。 此外，该项目的故意侧重于模型的开发和应用过程，并应导致创新的方法，整合基于代理人的模型的土地利用变化过程与经验观察的土地购买者，卖方，开发商和机构的态度，以及与土地利用，土地覆盖和生态系统的变化。 该项目还将通过将其纳入密歇根大学的广泛课程，对研究生和本科生教育产生直接影响，并将通过传播到更广泛的研究，教育和从业者社区，产生更广泛的教育和应用影响。 该项目是2001财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的一个奖项，重点是耦合自然和人类系统的动力学。

The complex interaction among current landscape conditions, cultural values and norms, policy prescriptions, and market forces dramatically limits the usefulness of linear models as tools for understanding the complex interactions among human and natural systems in many different settings, especially the transition zones between urban and rural areas. The development of policies and other solutions for minimizing negative ecological effects and introducing possible positive ecological effects of land-use change requires tools for anticipating and evaluating the complex interactions between humans and ecological systems. To have some predictive power, these tools should characterize the nature of land-use decision making at the levels of individual households, firms, and local governments, and they should permit evaluation of the ecological effects of various decisions. Such tools should recognize economic, political, and psychological motivations for land-use and management decisions on the urban fringe as well as utilities for sale of undeveloped land. This project focuses a multidisciplinary team on developing, evaluating, and applying agent-based models of land-use and land-cover change processes and on assessing their interactions with ecosystem structure and function. The primary objectives of the project are (1) to develop agent-based models of land-use decision making at the urban fringe, (2) to compile time-series spatial land-use and land-cover data in southeastern Michigan from roughly 1950 to the present, (3) to develop and apply spatial data, indicators, and models of ecological structure and function as associated with land-use change, and (4) to evaluate policy and design options for maintaining ecosystem viability as land-use patterns change. Complementing the research activities of this multidisciplinary team will be a suite of educational activities, including the formal incorporation of the integrated land-use, decision-making, and ecosystem models into both "content" classes (such as environmental economics, ecology, sociology, and policy development) and "methods" classes (such as complex systems modeling, GIS, spatial analysis, and remote sensing).The models and tools resulting from this project will have direct utility for understanding both human and natural landscape dynamics within urban systems, and they will assist in projecting patterns of ecological change at the urban-rural fringe. Because the project focuses on enhanced understandings of individual decision making that drives land-use decisions, it will enhance capabilities to formulate and test alternative policies and interventions that could reduce environmental costs and enhance environmental benefits. Furthermore, the project's deliberate focus on the model development and application process and should result in innovative approaches for integrating agent-based models of the land-use change process with empirical observations of land purchaser, seller, developer, and agency attitudes as well as with land-use, land-cover, and ecosystem change. The project also will have a direct impact on the graduate and undergraduate education through their incorporation in a broad range of courses at the University of Michigan, and it will have broader educational and application impacts through its dissemination to the broader research, education, and practitioner communities. This project is an award emanating from the FY 2001 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.