A CONCEPTUAL-APPROACH TO DYNAMIC AGRICULTURAL LAND-USE MODELING

We describe a dynamic agricultural land-use model based on a Markov pr ocess and governed by a few simple decision rules. Currently, the mode l is purely conceptual, and was designed with one objective. to invest igate the possibility of constructing top-down land-use models based o n as few processes as possible that might still be useful for statisti cal analyses of landuse change in a region. The model appears to behav e in a plausible fashion in a simulated landscape with respect to crop ping patterns and the effects of initial household size on wealth dist ribution. If this type of simple model could be validated, the informa tion that could be produced might be of considerable value in a wide r ange of applications, particularly with regard to technology adoption patterns and resultant regional production impacts. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.