Urban Growth and Land Cover Change In Chiang Mai and Taipei : Results From The SLEUTH Model

SLEUTH is a modified cellular automata (CA) model which consists of an urban growth sub model and a land cover change transition sub model. The urban growth model is the main component of SLEUTH, which is tightly coupled with the land cover change transition model. This model was chosen to calibrate urban growth in two Asian cities, Chiang Mai (Thailand) and Taipei (Taiwan). These cities are undergoing rapid land use/land cover change as a result of robust economic and population growth. SLEUTH cellular automata model contains characteristics that offer advantages for modelling physical dynamics. Because of its cellular data structure, it can be integrated with raster-based remote sensing data. Calibration of the SLEUTH model requires gridded inputs of topographic slope, land use, zones excluded from growth, urban spatial extents, transportation networks and terrain hillshading. These data were developed from remote sensing and from topographic maps using GIS, and were prepared at three different resolutions.