Suzana Dragićević

Spatial multi‐criteria evaluation (MCE) techniques aid urban planning management by analyzing decision problem alternatives for solutions to help inform decision‐making. However, there is a lack of such methods that incorporate the temporal dimension, an important factor when analyzing the dynamic urban landscape and decisions surrounding its changes. A novel spatio‐temporal MCE approach is proposed that operates in three‐dimensional (3D) space and time to identify changing suitability values of decision alternatives. This space–time method is implemented to evaluate the suitability of residential units over a 15‐year period in part of downtown City of Vancouver, Canada. The results indicate that the majority of units exhibit a decrease in suitability with time due to depreciation and reduction of assets like view and privacy from the construction of new buildings. The proposed method can be used by urban planners and developers to assist in long‐term assessments of proposed development scenarios and their impact on existing urban infrastructure.

Deforestation as a land-cover change process is linked to several environmental problems including desertification, biodiversity loss, and ultimately climate change. Understanding the land-cover change process and its relation to human–environment interactions is important for supporting spatial decisions and policy making at the global level. However, current geosimulation model applications mainly focus on characterizing urbanization and agriculture expansion. Existing modelling approaches are also unsuitable for simulating land-cover change processes covering large spatial extents. Thus, the objective of this research is to develop and implement a spherical geographic automata model to simulate deforestation at the global level under different scenarios designed to represent diverse future conditions. Simulation results from the deforestation model indicate the global forest size would decrease by 10.5% under the “business-as-usual” scenario through 2100. The global forest extent would also decline by 15.3% under the accelerated deforestation scenario and 3.7% under the sustainable deforestation scenario by the end of the 21st century. The obtained simulation outputs also revealed the rate of deforestation in protected areas to be considerably lower than the overall forest-cover change rate under all scenarios. The proposed model can be utilized by stakeholders to examine forest conservation programs and support sustainable policy making and implementation.