Computing and Information Systems - Research Publications
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ItemAURIN What If?: decision support for projections of land use allocations( 2012)It is increasingly important to understand land use issues to fully assess the effects of environmental change and urban regeneration scenarios. Land use decisions may have a profound impact on biodiversity, reduced land productivity due to soil degradation, and contribute to land and water shortage (Searchinger et al., 2008). A scenario-based Land Use Allocation (LUA) is one strategy for understanding land use options (Bryan et al., 2011; Fiorese and Guariso, 2010). LUA can be broadly defined as the medium to long-term strategic planning process by which land managers consider diverse environmental, social and economic factors, before choosing how land should be allocated and used in a given region. In LUA, an assessment is typically made to identify the most appropriate multidimensional pattern to achieve a desirable goal incorporating spatial, biophysical, economical and political dimensions (Malczewski, 2004). Frequently, environmental models and research tools that attempt to support these projections of land use allocations are built upon frameworks and programming languages which are tailor-made for a particular purpose, and not easily extended to support a wider sharing of resources and collaborative work (Li, 2007). The AURIN project has enhanced one leading scenario optimization based tool: What If?™(Klosterman, 1999), and made this a core part of its e-Infrastructure. This paper describes the What If? tool and demonstrates its application in AURIN.