THE INTEGRATION OF CELLULAR AUTOMATA AND WHAT IF? FOR SCENARIO PLANNING: FUTURE RESIDENTIAL EXPANSION IN THE CITY OF IPSWICH

Abstract. The ever-increasing volumes of available data for urban planning and management have led to the development of a range of planning support systems (PSS) for the design of more flexible and people-oriented cities. In the time of rapid urbanization, there has also been a continued focus on land use change models to simulate its complex dynamics. However, the integration of land use change models with planning support systems has received comparatively little attention, despite its potential to provide a more comprehensive understanding of urban futures over spatial and temporal scales. Considering this, a Cellular Automata (CA) land use change model has been coupled with the What If? PSS in this research. Using the City of Ipswich as the study case, its land use regulations and interaction with surroundings are analysed with multi-source data such as population variation and infrastructure distribution. Land suitability evaluation and demand projections have been modelled using What If? with detailed processes of residential expansion under different scenarios. Two scenarios with different planning strategies are analysed for their future development. The results indicate that continued growth of current residential areas would be the most reasonable strategy for the study area in the following years. By using scenario planning approach, the proposed CA – What If model can be used as a practical tool to analyse the future development of cities. Such data-driven models and tools enable urban planners and policymakers to explore future growth scenarios in the era of big data and global urbanization.