Discussion Questions (Week 4)

Lo and Yang. 2002. Drivers of Land-Use/Land-Cover Changes and Dynamic Modeling for The Atlanta, Georgia Metropolitan Area.

Set 1

1. What RS data were used to study the drivers of land cover change?
2. What are the 6 classes of land-cover? Explain each.
3. What does fragmentation measure?
4. What is the CA Model?
5. When discussing modeling the future of Atlanta, the author’s state that urban clusters will decrease and the average size of cluster will increase, as well as, the average slope steepness for urban land will increase. What does this mean?
6. What are the limitations of CA model?

Set 2

1. Why is socio-economic data so important in predicting land-use/land-cover changes?
2. What location measures were used in the study?
3. Do you agree or disagree with the authors’ opinion that per capita income has increased over time, driving suburban grown through interest in moving to more pristine environments?
4. Why is the model best at the census tract level?
5. What is the cellular automation model?
6. What are the temporal limits of this model? Is unchecked sprawl into a megalopolis the future of the 13 counties around Atlanta, GA?
7. What other forms of urban growth could there be in the Atlanta area that have not been represented in this study?
8. Could the authors possibly try harder to overstate the obvious (deforestation follows urbal sprawl)?
9. Postmodern metropolis? Who came up with this term…Batman?
10. What is the average flight speed of an unladen swallow?

Prol-Ledesma, et al. 2002. Use of Cartographic data and Landsat TM images to determine Land Use change in Vicinity of Mexico City. International Journal of Remote Sensing 23 (9): 1927-1933.

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Cohen, et al. 2002. Characterizing 23 years (1972-95) of stand replacement disturbance in western Oregon forests with Landsat imagery. ECOSYSTEMS 5 (2): 122-137.

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