"This volume gives readers everything they need to understand and apply the LUCIS model to their own regions. Background information on data formats and the ArcGIS geoprocessing environment is provided, and then the steps of LUCIS are laid out in an easy-to-follow manner. Concepts are illustrated by a real-world case study, a nine-county region of north central Florida where LUCIS has been applied with great success. ArcGIS assignments are provided at various points along the way to reinforce the concepts and provide hands-on experience with LUCIS techniques."--BOOK JACKET.

The idea of this book started at approximately 33.000 feet, somewhere above the Alps. On our way to a workshop in Venice we had the opportunity of appreciating the different types of landscapes and the complex patchwork of urban areas, agriculture, forests, rivers and lakes that can be seen from an aircraft. The complexity of this puzzle, and the complex task of managing its evolution, became the topic of conversation for the rest of the flight. It also became the topic of this book. Land-use management and multicriteria analysis offer countless opportunities for mutual reinforcement. These two fields have developed largely independently, but a trend towards the exploration of their synergies is now emerging. This is clear from the recent literature on land-use management, spatial analysis and spatial planning, which increasingly includes references to multicriteria methodologies and decision analysis. At the same time, a growing share of multicriteria applications now focus on environmental and land-use issues. This book includes contributions from authors coming from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. All together they highlight current issues in multicriteria analysis and land-use management from theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives.

This book reflects the results of more than ten years of cooperative research involving Wageningen Agricultural University (y. l AU) in the Netherlands, the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE; Centro Agron6mico Tropical de lnvestigaci6n y Ensefianza) in Costa Rica and the Costa Rican Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG; Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadeda) as part of the Research Program on Sustainability in Agriculture (REPOSA) in the Central American country. The type of cooperation was unusual as it focused on both research and the education of students undertaking either M. Sc. thesis projects or a program of practical training in the various aspects of studying land use. Since funding was provided by W AU, a high degree of scientific autonomy was created that has clearly benefited the independent, scientific rigor of the work. Over the ten-year period, the program has changed from being a patchwork of various insulated specialist projects, into a truly interdisciplinary effort, leading to the development of innovative tools for analyzing land use on a number of geographical scales. These tools are presented in this book. Besides CATIE and MAG, cooperation with other Costa Rican partner institutions has been essential from the beginning, and this process of interaction has also evolved considerably over time.

This book proposes a method to solve land use problems, and has made some significant contributions to the land use analysis and optimization study fields. Firstly, three spatio-temporal logit models for land use change analysis, namely, geographically and temporally weighted logit model (GTWLM), spatio-temporal panel logit model (ST-PLM) and generalized spatio-temporal logit model (GSTLM), are proposed. GTWLM, which considers spatio-temporal non-stationarity, includes temporal data in a spatio-temporal framework by proposing a spatiotemporal distance. ST-PLM incorporates the spatio-temporal correlation and individual effect in one model. By integrating GTWLM and ST-PLM, the GSTLM explores spatio-temporal non-stationarity and correlations simultaneously, whilst considering their individual effects to construct an integrated model. Secondly, a MOO-based two-level spatial planning of land use is proposed. The spatial planning aims at managing and coordinating the land use at different geographic extents and involves spatial layouts and structures of land use at different levels. In spatial planning, GIS and Remote Sensing are used to evaluate, analyze, and measure environmental, economic and social issues. The quantitative relationships between these objectives and spatial land use allocation are then used as rules in the MOO process to simulate environmental conditions under different spatial land use allocation scenarios. The book features a case study of Shenzhen city, the most important Special Economic Zone in China. This book will be of interest to academics and professionals in the fields of urban planning, land resource management, remote sensing and geographic information systems.