Modeling of Land-Use and Ecological Dynamics

As cities are rapidly expanding and encroaching into agricultural and natural areas, a question of primary concern is how this expansion affects surrounding agriculture and natural landscapes. This book presents a wide spectrum of both theoretical and empirical approaches to simulation and assessment of landscape dynamics. The first part presents state-of-the-art modelling approaches pertaining to land-use changes entailed by the urban sprawl, at different spatial resolutions and temporal time scales. The second part is dedicated to case studies of the effects and consequences of the emerging urban-agriculture open space patterns.

Prof. Daniel Czamanski is an economist specializing in urban spatial dynamics and in energy economics. He is a associate dean for graduate studies and research in the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He is the director of the city complexity research lab. Czamanski has published a number of books and tens of academic papers. Prof Itzhak Benenson is an expert in geosimulation and agent-based modeling of the complex spatial systems. He is a faculty member and head of the Department of Geography and Human Environment of the Tel Aviv University and the director of the Geosimulation and Spatial Analysis laboratory.

Prof. Itzhak Benenson has published several books and numerous papers on analysis and modeling of the human-driven geographic systems.

Dr. Dan Malkinson is a faculty member at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at The University of Haifa. He is a landscape ecologist and most of his work pertains to the relationships between spatial patterns and ecosystem processes. He studies the effects of disturbances on ecosystem function with specific interest in the effects of landscape disturbances, such as land use changes and wildfire, on ecosystem function.