A fractional land use change model for ecological applications

By mapping land use under projections of socio-economic change, ecological changes can be predicted to inform conservation decision-making. We present a land use model that enables the fine-scale mapping of land use change under future scenarios. Its predictions can be used as input to virtually all existing spatially-explicit ecological models.

Citation:
Kapitza S, Golding N, Wintle BA. A fractional land use change model for ecological applications. Environ Model Softw. 2022;147.

Keywords:
Agricultural expansion; Biodiversity conservation; Continuous fields; Fractional land cover; Land use forecasting; Socio-economic change; Agriculture
Biodiversity; Conservation; Decision making

Abstract:
By mapping land use under projections of socio-economic change, ecological changes can be predicted to inform conservation decision-making. We present a land use model that enables the fine-scale mapping of land use change under future scenarios. Its predictions can be used as input to virtually all existing spatially-explicit ecological models.