Empirical methods for modeling landscape change, ecosystem services, and biodiversity

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to synthesize recent economics research aimed at integrating discrete-choice econometric models of land-use change with spatially-explicit landscape simulations and quantitative ecology. This research explicitly models changes in the spatial pattern of landscapes in two steps: 1) econometric estimation of parcel-scale transition probabilities from observed data; and 2) spatially-explicit simulations of landscape change that use the estimated transition probabilities as decision rules that guide land-use change.

Keywords

Conservation of private land, micro-econometric modeling, spatially-explicit landscape simulation, landscape change

Citation

Lewis, David; Alig, Ralph. 2009. Empirical methods for modeling landscape change, ecosystem services, and biodiversity. Western Economics Forum. 8(1): 29-39.