SLEUTH Model Analysis

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SLEUTH is a scale-independent, open source, 2D CA based model that simulates urban growth and land use changes that are caused by urbanization. Therefore, SLEUTH has become a popular tool to evaluate policies and scenario planning (Chaudhuri & Clarke, 2013b). The application of SLEUTH to the San Francisco Bay Area by Clarke et al. (1997) was the first major application of the SLEUTH model. This paper documents the details of the model, describing the necessary data layers, the five growth coefficients, what they control and the four types of urban growth. In addition to these fundamental principles of SLEUTH, the concept of self-modification was introduced. Additionally, it is a descriptive model, meaning it does not explain the land cover …show more content…

The model uses a raster grid based on a GIF-image in gray scale with a consistent resolution and spatial extent. The Slope layer uses elevation data and requires only one time period with the percent slope, commonly derived from a digital elevation map. The Land use layer is an optional layer that uses any number of land use categories, as long as they are consistent. It requires at least two time periods and is used to calculate a class-to-class transition probabilities matrix among the different land use categories. The excluded layer defines all areas that are resistant to urbanization, this could be a location where it’s impossible to develop or where development is unlikely. For this layer it is possible to include the likeliness a location is available for development, from 0 (available) to 100 (not available). The Urban layer consists of a raster in which a cell is either urban or non-urban. In this layer the earliest year is known as the seed, which is used for the initialization of the model. Subsequent years are the control years, which are used to calculate goodness of fit statistics. The Transportation layer needs at least two time periods and has the option to include weighting to represent the relative importance of roads and to determine the probability of urban development according to accessibility of a location. The last layer, Hillshade is needed to give spatial context to the urban extent data and is only used for visualization purposes (Clarke, et al. 1997; Candau,

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