Using Constraint Cellular Automata to Simulate Urban Development in a Cross-border Area.

Urban sprawl and space consumption have become key issues in sustainable territorial development. Traditional planning approaches are often insufficient to anticipate their complex spatial consequences, especially in cross-border areas. Such complexity requires the use of dynamic spatial simulations and the development of adapted tools like LucSim, a CA-based tool offering solutions for sharing spatial data and simulations among scientists, technicians and stakeholders. Methodologically, this tool allows us to simulate future land use change by first quantifying and then locating the changes. Quantification is based on Markov chains and location on transition rules. The proposed approach is implemented on the Strasbourg-Kehl cross-border area and calibrated with three contrasting prospective scenarios to try to predict cross-border territorial development.