Modelling actors’ influence on land use change: a dynamic systems approach

In this paper we show how the dynamic behavior of human actors and their influence on land use change can be modeled to produce spatially explicit simulations of future land use. An actor-based dynamic systems approach is integrated with the existing APoLUS (Actor, Policy and Land Use Simulator) cellular automata land use model. Previous versions of APoLUS determined final total land use amounts, (land use claims), by entering estimated growth tendencies by hand. The values of actor state variables, representing the influence of actor behaviour on land use change, were also input at the start of a simulation and did not vary throughout the model run-time. The present paper overcomes these limitations by applying a dynamic systems approach to model both land use claims and the dynamic evolution of actor behaviour over time. We apply the modified model to the case of the Navarre region, Spain, for the example of land use dedicated to solar energy. Three different cases are considered: (i) the case of ‘actor statics’ (the actor variables are static parameters); and also ‘actor dynamics’ under two long-term regional economic scenarios: (ii) the ‘no-growth’ scenario (no long-term economic growth in the region) and (ii) the ‘growth’ scenario (exponential long-term economic growth in the region). Simulation results demonstrate the much faster development of solar energy in the region under study in both ‘actor dynamics’ cases, as compared to the ‘actor statics’ approximation, with regional economic growth further facilitating the solar energy development, as compared to the ‘no-growth’ scenario.