| Author | Anwar, Sk. Morshed |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.SR-02-2 |
| Subject(s) | Land use Simulation methods
|
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science. |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | It is important to study the driving forces of land use change to understand the change
process. Spatially explicit simulation models help to test hypotheses about landscape
evolution under several scenarios. This research presents a dynamic simulation model of
land use change of Nong Chok area, Central Thailand. Simulation of land use change has
been performed integrating remote sensing, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and
dynamic simulation toolkit. The model has been developed based on selected biophysical
and human driving forces. It is a cellular automata model that presents vicinity based
transitional functions. The study was conceived for the simulation of land use change
dynamics, in particular from paddy fields to fishponds. The model was run for 19 years
from 1981-2000. Data describing present and historic land use pattern were derived from
aerial photographs. Transition functions were developed following entropy calculation by
using ID3 algorithm of the land use change datasets. The model uses as its input a land use
map (1981), spatial and human variables: distance to canal, age, ownership, religion,
education, and family size of the farmers before the simulation starts. The result of the
simulation showed considerable performance of the model to diffuse fishponds except few
mismatches. To validate this spatial simulation model of land use change dynamics, the
simulated maps were compared with the reference land use map (2000) using a set of
landscape indices: number of fishpond cells, patch density, mean patch size, edge density,
fractal dimension, and mean nearest neighborhood. Further investigation by integrating
other variables might allow the model to simulate land use change with greater accuracy. |
| Year | 2002 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Advanced Technologies (SAT) |
| Department | Department of Information and Communications Technologies (DICT) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Space Technology Application and Research (SR) |
| Chairperson(s) | Borne, Frederic ; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Sohan Wijesekera, Francois Bousquet; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Government of Japan; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2002 |