Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Modeling Non-Stationary Urban Growth: The Sprawl Model And The Ecological Impacts Of Development, Kevin Mcgarigal, Ethan Plunkett, Lisabeth L. Willey, Brad Compton, Bill Deluca, Joanna Grand

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Urban development is a principal driver of landscape change affecting the integrity of ecological systems and the capacity of the landscape to support species. We developed an urban growth model (SPRAWL), evaluated it with hindcasting, and used it to simulate urban growth across the northeastern United States between 2010 and 2080 under four alternative scenarios. In the model, urban growth is constrained by demand for new development for each time step at the subregional scale. Demand is subsequently allocated to local application panes (5 km on a side within 15 km window) using a unique landscape context matching algorithm, such …