Land-use-change patterns are the result of the complex interaction between the human and the physical environment. Case studies of the determinants of land-use change can help to analyse which theory is appropriate in a particular region and stimulate the development of new theoretic understandings. In this paper an empirical method is presented to analyse the pattern of land-use change that allows a wide range of factors, from different disciplines, to contribute to the explanation of land-use change. The method is applied to the Netherlands, based on an extensive database of land-use change and its potential determinants. Historic as well as recent land-use changes are studied. Historic land-use change is related mainly to the variation in the biophysical environment. Levels of explanation are low because of the inability to address the temporal variation in location factors. For the recent changes in land use high levels of explanation are obtained. The most important changes during this period are expansions of residential, industrial/commercial, and recreational areas. The location of these changes can be explained by a combination of accessibility measures, spatial policies, and neighbourhood interactions. On the basis of these results it is possible to define priority topics for in-depth analysis of land-use-change processes and suggest factors, relations, and processes that need to be included in dynamic land-use-change models that support land-use-planning policies.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlonsoW, 1964Location and Land Use (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
2.
AngelsenAKaimowitzD, 1999, “Rethinking the causes of deforestation: Lessons from economic models”The World Bank Observer14, 73–98
3.
AnselinL, 1988Spatial Econometrics: Methods and Models (Kluwer, Boston, MA)
4.
ArthurW B, 1994, “Urban systems and historical path dependence”, in Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy Ed. ArthurW B (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI) pp 99–110
5.
BellK PBockstaelN E, 2000, “Applying the generalized-moments estimation approach to spatial problems involving microlevel data”The Review of Economics and Statistics82, 72–82
6.
BürgiMTurnerM G, 2002, “Factors and processes shaping land cover and land cover changes along the Wisconsin River”Ecosystems5, 184–201
7.
CastellsM, 2000The Rise of the Network Society (Blackwell, Oxford)
8.
ChomitzK MGrayD A, 1996, “Roads, land use, and deforestation: A spatial model applied to Belize”The World Bank Economic Review10, 487–512
9.
ChristallerW, 1933Die zentralen Orte in Süddeutschland; published in 1966 as Central Places of Southern Germany translated by BaskinC W (Prentice-Hall, London)
10.
ClarkW A V, 2000, “Monocentric to polycentric: New urban forms and old paradigms”, in A Companion to the City Eds BridgeGWatsonS (Blackwell, Oxford) pp 141–154
11.
de JongTvan RitsemaEck J R, 1996, “Location profile based measures as an improvement on accessibility modelling in GIS”Computers, Environment and Urban Systems20, 181–190
12.
de NijsTde NietRde HollanderGFiliusFGroenJ, 2001, “De LeefOmgevings Verkenner: Kaartbeelden van 2030. Een verkenning van de inzet bij beleidsondersteuning [The Environment Explorer: Land use maps for 2030. An exploration of the possibilities for policy support], RIVM report 408505 004, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven
13.
de WitA J Wvan der HeijdenTh G CThunnissenH A M, 1999, 'Vervaardiging en nauwkeurigheid van het LGN3-grondgebruiksbestand [Development and accuracy of the LGN3 land use database], report 633, DLO-Staring Centrum, Wageningen
14.
DielemanF MDijstM JSpitT, 1999, “Planning the compact city: The Randstad Holland experience”European Planning Studies7, 605–620
15.
DielemanF MDijstMBurghouwtG, 2002, “Urban form and travel behaviour: Micro-level household attributes and residential context”Urban Studies39, 507–527
16.
FaludiAVan der ValkA J, 1990De Groeikernen als Hoekstenen van de Nederlandse Ruimtelijke Planningsdoctrin [The growth poles as cornerstones of Dutch spatial planning doctrine] (Van Gorcum, Assen)
17.
FaludiAVan der ValkA J, 1994Rule and Order: Dutch Planning Doctrine in the Twentieth Century (Kluwer Academic, Dordrecht)
18.
FaustKEntwistelBRindfussR RWalshS JSawangdeeY, 1999, “Spatial arrangements of social and economic networks among villages in Nang Rong District, Thailand”Social Networks21, 311–337
19.
FischerGVelthuizenHShahMNachtergaeleF, 2002Global Agro-ecological Assessment for Agriculture in the 21st Century: Methodology and Results (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria)
20.
FujitaMKrugmanPMoriT, 1999, “On the evolution of hierarchical urban systems”European Economic Review43, 209–251
21.
GeogheganJVillarS CKlepeisPMendozaP MOgneva-HimmelbergerYChowdhuryR RTurnerB LIIVanceC, 2001, “Modeling tropical deforestation in the Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region: Comparing survey and satellite data”Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment85, 25–46
22.
GeogheganJWaingerL ABockstaelN E, 1997, “Spatial landscape indices in a hedonic framework: An ecological economics analysis using GIS”Ecological Economics23, 251–264
23.
HeH SVenturaS JMladenoffD J, 2002, “Effects of spatial aggregation approaches on classified satellite imagery”International Journal of Geographical Information Science16, 93–109
24.
HohenbergP MLeesL H, 1985The Making of Urban Europe 1000–1950 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
25.
IrwinEGeogheganJ, 2001, “Theory, data, methods: Developing spatially-explicit economic models of land use change”Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment85, 7–24
26.
KrugmanP, 1998, “Space: The final frontier”The Journal of Economic Perspectives12, 161–174
27.
KrugmanP, 1999, “The role of geography in development”International Regional Science Review22, 142–161
28.
LambinE FTurnerB LIIGeistH JAgbolaS BAngelsenABruceJ WCoomesODirzoRFischerGFolkeCGeorgeP SHomewoodKImbernonJLeemansRLiX BMoranE FMortimoreMRamakrishnanP SRichardsJ FSkanesHStoneG DSvedinUVeldkampAVogelCXuJ C, 2001, “The causes of land-use and land-cover change: Moving beyond the myths”Global Environmental Change4, 261–269
29.
LeggettC GBockstaelN E, 2000, “Evidence of the effects of water quality on residential land prices”Journal of Environmental Economics and Management39, 121–144
MertensBSimderlinW DNdoyeOLambinE F, 2000, “Impact of macroeconomic change on deforestation in south Cameroon: Integration of household survey and remotely-sensed data”World Development28, 983–999
32.
MilneB TJohnsonA R, 1993, “Renormalization relations for scale transformation in ecology”Lectures on Mathematics in the Life Sciences23, 109–128
33.
Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat, 2001Atlas Interfererende Netwerken. Historische ontwikkeling van verkeer- en waternetwerken [Atlas of interconnected networks: Historical development of the transport and water network] report 110643/CE1/0j0/000089, Uitgevoerd door Arcadis en Carto Studio Amsterdam, Ministerie van Verkeer en Waterstaat Arnhem
34.
MoodyAWoodcockC E, 1994, “Scale-dependent errors in the estimation of land-cover proportions: Implications for global land-cover data sets”Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing60, 585–594
35.
MunroeDSouthworthJTuckerC M, 2001, “The dynamics of land-cover change in western Honduras: Spatial autocorrelation and temporal variation”, paper prepared for the 2001 American Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meetings, http://www.uncc.edu/dkmunroe/publications.htm
36.
NelsonG CHarrisVStoneS W, 2001, “Deforestation, land use, and property rights: Empirical evidence from Darien, Panama”Land Economics77, 187–205
37.
PahlR E, 1975Whose City and Further Essays on Urban Society (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
38.
de VriesPenning FTengPMetsalaarK, 1992Systems Approaches for Agricultural Development (Kluwer Academic, London)
39.
PijanowskiB CBrownD GShellitoB AManikG A, 2002, “Using neural networks and GIS to forecast land use changes: A land transformation model”Computers, Environment and Urban Systems26, 553–575
40.
PontiusR GSchneiderL C, 2001, “Land-use change model validation by an ROC method for the Ipswich watershed, Massachusetts, USA”Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment85, 239–248
41.
RabinM, 1998, “Psychology and economics”Journal of Economic Literature36, 11–46
42.
RazieiAEversW, 2001, “Afstemming ruimtelijke gegevens voor de L(eef)O(mgevings)V(erkenner) en R(uimte)S(canner)” [Tuning of spatial data for the Environment Explorer and the Land Use Scanner], Interim CIM-rapport M009/01, National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Bilthoven
43.
RicardoD, 1817Principles of Political Economy and Taxation reprinted in 1971 (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middx)
44.
RobinsonW, 1950, “Ecological correlations and the behaviour of individuals”American Sociological Review15, 351–357
45.
SonneveldM P WBoumaJVeldkampA, 2002, “Refining soil survey information for a Dutch soil series using land use history”Soil Use and Management18, 157–163
46.
SteurG G LHeijinkW, 1991, “Bodemkaart van Nederland schaal 1:50 000. Algemene begrippen en indeligen” [Soil map of the Netherlands scale 1:50 000. Definitions and classification], DLO Staring Centrum Wageningen
47.
SwetsJ A, 1986, “Measuring the accuracy of diagnostic systems”Science240, 1285–1293
48.
ThompsonD MSerneelsSLambinE F, 2002, “Land use strategies in the Mara ecosystem: A spatial analysis linking socio-economic data with landscape variables”, in Linking People, Place, and Policy: A GIScience Approach Eds WalshS JCrews-MeyerK A (Kluwer Academic, Boston, MA) pp 39–68
49.
TorrensP MO'SullivanD, 2001, “Cellular automata and urban simulation: Where do we go from here?”Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design28, 163–168
50.
TranmerMSteelD G, 1998, “Using census data to investigate the causes of the ecological fallacy”Environment and Planning A30, 817–831
51.
TurnerB LIIKaspersonR EMeyerW BDowK MGoldingDKaspersonJ XMitchelR CRatickS J, 1990, “Two types of global environmental change; definitional and spatial-scale issues in their human dimensions”Global Environmental Change1, 14–22
52.
van der VlistA JGorterCNijkampPRietveldP, 2002, “Residential mobility and local housing-market differences”Environment and Planning A34, 1147–1164
53.
van KempenRHooimeijerPAtzemaODijstMVerhoeffR, 2000Sociale en Culturele Ontwikkelingen en Ruimtelijke Configuraties [Social and cultural development in relation to spatial pattern] (Van Gorcum, Assen)
54.
VenablesA J, 1999, “But why does geography matter and which geography matters?”International Regional Science Review22, 238–241
55.
VerburgP Hvan RitsemaEck JNijsTVisserHJongK, 2004, “A method to analyse neighborhood characteristics of land use patterns”Computers, Environment and Urban Systems in press
56.
Von ThünenJ H, 1966Der isolierte Staat in Beziehung der Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie [Isolated state], Ed. HallP, translated by WartenbergC M (Pergamon, Oxford)
57.
WalshS JCrawfordT WCrews-MeyerK AWelshW F, 2001, “A multi scale analysis of land use, land cover change and NDVI variation in Nang Rong District, Northeast Thailand”Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment85, 47–64
WhiteREngelenG, 2000, “High-resolution integrated modelling of the spatial dynamics of urban and regional systems”Computers, Environment and Urban Systems24, 383–400
60.
WuF, 1999, “GIS-based simulation as an exploratory analysis for space-time processes”Journal of Geographical Systems1, 199–218
61.
YehA GLiX, 2001, “A constrained CA model for the simulation and planning of sustainable urban forms by using GIS”Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design28, 733–753
