Integrating urbanization into landscape-level ecological assessments.

Abstract

Economists and ecologists are often asked to collaborate on landscape-level analyses designed to jointly assess economic and ecological conditions resulting from environmental policy scenarios. This trend toward multidisciplinary projects, coupled with the growing use of geographic information systems, has led to the development policy scenarios. This trend toward multi-disciplinary projects, coupled with the growing use of geographic information systems, has led to the development spatially explicit models that can be used to examine and project land-use change. Although spatial land-use models are still evolving, most published efforts have modeled the conversion of nonurban land to urban uses as a function as a function of explanatory variables based on population density and the spatial proximity of land to roads, markets, and population centers.

Citation

Kline, Jeffrey D.; Moses, Alissa; Alig, Ralph J. 2001. Integrating urbanization into landscape-level ecological assessments. Ecosystems. 4:3-18