Doctoral Dissertation Research: Agent-Based Exploratory Modeling of Sustainable Land Use Patterns Generated with Multiobjective Spatial Optimization

位于城乡过渡地带的郊区对许多城市居民有着不可否认的吸引力。与此同时，它们的特点是低密度、跳跃式和零散的住宅区，由发达和未发达的地区组成。这种土地使用安排导致种族和经济日益分离，环境恶化，农业用地和荒野丧失，社会建筑遗产受到侵蚀。这个博士论文研究项目解决了一个问题，是否其他的土地安排，改善目前的增长在郊区边缘的负面影响是可持续的和社会可接受的。为了回答这个研究问题，博士生将采用一种综合的形式和过程方法进行城市土地利用建模，其中生成空间优化与探索性的基于空间代理的模拟相结合。该方法将在华盛顿州切兰市的一个小的远郊社区进行测试，该社区一直受到两种对立和相互竞争的空间发展力量的影响：濒危鲑鱼保护和来自普吉特海湾大都市区的休闲和退休人员涌入。研究的第一步将是使用多目标土地分配模型产生一些空间解决方案，其中人口增长是针对填充和重建，促进混合用途和高建筑密度。鉴于人类空间决策的不一致性，这种可持续的模式在实践中是否可能是一个主要的研究问题。 学生将通过使用基于空间代理的模拟来研究它，以测试人工社会中可持续增长管理方案的可持续性。优化和模拟模型的空间结果将进一步用于比较分析，以确定当地开发商之间的社会互动，从而在真实的世界中实现可持续的土地利用模式。这项研究的结果将有助于更好地了解可用于促进可持续土地利用发展的因素。此外，这项研究将地理学与选择心理学相关的知识相结合。前景决策理论，解释各种风险态度下的选择决策，将在一些配置进行调查，以验证社会接受的反蔓延的土地利用安排。这项研究的新奇之处在于它的重点是更明智的土地利用决策建模的生成性和探索性的作用。这两个互补的模型将作为推理引擎浏览景观的空间信息，并创造新的可能性增长的住宿。这项研究也可能导致认识的地理建模在理解土地利用变化的时空动态的复杂性。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立的研究生涯。

Suburbia located in the urban-rural transition zone have an undeniable appeal to many urban dwellers. At the same time, they are characterized by low-density, leapfrog, and fragmented residential patchwork of developed and undeveloped tracts. Such land-use arrangements have led to an increasing ethnical and economic separation, deterioration of the environment, loss of agricultural land and wilderness, and the erosion of society's architectural heritage. This doctoral dissertation research project addresses a question of whether other arrangements of land that ameliorate the negative effects of current growth in the suburban fringe are sustainable and socially acceptable. In order to answer the research question, the doctoral student will employ an integrative form-and-process methodology for urban land-use modeling, where generative spatial optimization is coupled with exploratory spatial agent-based simulation. The methodology will be tested on a small exurban community of Chelan City in the state of Washington, which has been subject to two opposing and competing spatial development forces: endangered salmon protection and a recreation and retirement-bound influx of people from the Puget Sound metropolitan area. The first step of the research will be to generate a number of spatial solutions using a multiobjective land-allocation model, where population growth is directed to infill and redevelopment, with promotion of mixed uses and high build-out density. Whether such sustainable patterns are possible at all in practice given the inconsistency of human spatial decision-making is a major research question. The student will investigate it by using spatial agent-based simulation to test the achievability of sustainable growth management scenarios in an artificial society. The spatial outcomes from the optimization and simulation models will be further used for comparative analysis to identify social interactions among local developers that could lead to sustainable land-use patterns in the real world.The results of this research will contribute to better understanding of the factors that could be used to promote sustainable land use development. Moreover, this study integrates geography with a body of knowledge related to psychology of choice. Prospect decision-making theory, explaining choice-making under various risk attitudes, will be investigated in a number of configurations to verify the social acceptance of anti-sprawl land use arrangements. The novelty of this research lies in its emphasis on the generative and exploratory role of modeling for more informed land use policymaking. The two complementary models will serve as inference engines for browsing through landscapes of spatial information and creating new possibilities of growth accommodation. This research may also lead to an increased recognition of geographic modeling in understanding the complexities of spatio-temporal dynamics of land use change. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award will also provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.