Spatial Diffusion Modeling of New Residential Area for Land-Use Planning of Rural Villages

In this paper, a spatial diffusion model that can be applied to village development projects was developed with the expansion of a rural village taken into consideration, from the viewpoint of practical application with cellular automata techniques. The model determines and allocates a new built-up area required for the expansion of existing villages. Cellular automata and land suitability analysis methods were combined in the model, which uses grid data from geographic information systems. Probability of land use change for optimizing the development area was determined using a land suitability analysis method based on six criteria, which include the slope, drainage characteristic, and aspect of land and the distances from a road, stream, and village center. Weighting values of these criteria were quantified by an analytic hierarchy process method. Model tests for the simulation of three types of village expansion—an isolation village, a village with a horizontal road, and a village with a nodal point of cross road—showed results that reasonably agreed with the general location theory of urban land. Model applicability to a test village was also evaluated. The six parameters of criteria were calibrated based on the changes in land use data of the test village between 1973 and 1980, through sensitivity analysis for all parameters by a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test method. Simulated and observed results of village shape in a land use map from 1992 showed good similarities with each other through a morphology verification method. The model was also applied to the simulation of spatial changes according to three scenario plans, which enabled us not only to evaluate the spatial expansion of the village according to boundary conditions of the model, but also to simulate the village’s land use planning.