Towards a conceptual dynamic land-use model

Abstract

Non-agricultural uses and demand for food are placing increasing pressures on the land resource. The practicability of land-use modelling in addressing these pressures is limited by having to deal with human agents in agroecological systems; there are many problems in attempting to model farmers’ decision-making behaviour. The benefits of appropriate land-use models are obvious enough: if the major factors that affect future land-use change are known, then steps can be taken to steer it in a direction that satisfies the often competing aims of different sections of society. On the basis that even rudimentary models of land-use change could be of real value, we describe preliminary work on a conceptual model of land use in a region based on simple and, for the most part, easily verifiable rules. We indicate future work to turn the conceptual model into a useful tool for ex ante policy assessment.