A design and application of a multi-agent system and GIS for simulation of expansion in urban planning

In this paper, a dynamic model was presented reposing on the theory of multi-agent system and rule of allocation for urban land resource in time and space and GIS, representing the interaction of agents which impact on urban land outspreading. The model was applied to analyzing and simulating Beijing city´s land expansion, and the results show that it was effective to interpret the reason of urban land outspreading and explain the contribution of outspreading by agents´ behavior. By contrasting the results of remote-sensing images, the accuracy reached over 71% according to cell-by-cell comparison. The results of application indicated the method was more efficacious than simple CA to support decision-making for government and urban planners.