Simulation of Dynamic Urban Growth with Partial Least Squares Regression-Based Cellular Automata in a GIS Environment

We developed a geographic cellular automata (CA) model based on partial least squares (PLS) regression (termed PLS-CA) to simulate dynamic urban growth in a geographical information systems (GIS) environment. The PLS method extends multiple linear regression models that are used to define the unique factors driving urban growth by eliminating multicollinearity among the candidate drivers. The key factors (the spatial variables) extracted are uncorrelated, resulting in effective transition rules for urban growth modeling. The PLS-CA model was applied to simulate the rapid urban growth of Songjiang District, an outer suburb in the Shanghai Municipality of China from 1992 to 2008. Among the three components acquired by PLS, the first two explained more than 95% of the total variance. The results showed that the PLS-CA simulated pattern of urban growth matched the observed pattern with an overall accuracy of 85.8%, as compared with 83.5% of a logistic-regression-based CA model for the same area. The PLS-CA model is readily applicable to simulations of urban growth in other rapidly urbanizing areas to generate realistic land use patterns and project future scenarios.