Post date: Sep 30, 2013 6:03:11 PM
The report *Advancing Land Change Modeling: Opportunities and Research Requirements* was released recently in pre-publication format via the National Academies Press web site: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.** php?record_id=18385 <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18385> Additional report info can be found here as well: <http://dels.nas.edu/Report/report/18385>. The study committee included several geographers, assessed the current state of land-change modeling, and identified opportunities for future developments in these models.
Urban development, agriculture, and energy production are just a few of the ways that human activities are continually changing and reshaping the Earth's surface. Land-change models (LCMs) are important tools for understanding and managing present and future landscape conditions, from an individual parcel of land in a city to the vast expanses of forests around the world. A recent explosion in the number and types of land observations, model approaches, and computational infrastructure has ushered in a new generation of land change models capable of informing decision making at a greater level of detail. This National Research Council report, produced at the request of the U.S. Geological Survey and NASA, evaluates the various land-change modeling approaches and their applications, and how they might be improved to better assist science, policy, and decision makers.