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、政策处方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有用性，特别是在城市和农村地区之间的过渡地带。制定政策和其他解决办法以尽量减少土地利用变化的负面生态影响和引入可能的积极生态影响，需要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，这些工具应该在个体家庭、企业和地方政府的层面上描述土地使用决策的性质，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地区土地使用和管理决策的经济、政治和心理动机，以及出售未开发土地的公用事业。该项目集中了一个多学科团队开发、评估和应用基于主体的土地利用和土地覆盖变化过程模型，并评估它们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)建立基于主体的城市边缘土地利用决策模型；(2)收集密歇根州东南部大约从1950年至今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；(4)评估在土地利用模式变化时维持生态系统可行性的政策和设计方案。补充这个多学科团队的研究活动将是一系列教育活动，包括将综合土地利用、决策和生态系统模型正式纳入“内容”课程（如环境经济学、生态学、社会学和政策制定）和“方法”课程（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理解城市系统内的人类和自然景观动态，并有助于预测城乡边缘的生态变化模式。由于该项目的重点是加强对推动土地使用决策的个人决策的理解，因此它将提高制定和测试可降低环境成本和提高环境效益的替代政策和干预措施的能力。此外，该项目有意将重点放在模型开发和应用过程上，并应产生创新方法，将土地利用变化过程的基于主体的模型与土地购买者、卖方、开发商和代理态度的经验观察结合起来，并与土地利用、土地覆盖和生态系统变化结合起来。该项目还将通过将研究生和本科教育纳入密歇根大学的广泛课程，对其产生直接影响，并将通过向更广泛的研究、教育和从业者社区传播，对其产生更广泛的教育和应用影响。该项目是2001年度环境生物复杂性特别竞赛颁发的奖项，重点关注自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

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.