MOEINA M., ASGARIAN A., SAKIEH Y., SAFIANIAN A., Sustainable Cities and Society, Vol. 39, PP. 557_567, 2018.

Abstract: This study attempts to evaluate different land-use scenarios in a highly growing region and also tofind the trade-offbetween urbanization and agricultural productivity in the Isfahan City, central Iran. In doing so, severalmodeling tools including satellite image processing, Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE), Cellular Automata-MarkovChain (CA-MC) model and scenario analysis are employed to delineate highly competitive zones and also todetect sustainable trajectories of future urban growth in the region. In this regard, suitability surfaces depictingthe potential of the area for urbanization and agricultural activities are created using the MCE method and theselayers were then used to produce continuous and categorized layers of land-use competition in the research area.These layers are also implemented to develop multiple growth scenarios through the CA-MC model and possibleland-use competition zones are identified under historical and trend-breaking options. Finally, by integrating thetotal set of urban growth layers derived from predictive scenarios in this study, an innovative categorizationscheme is developed to study the effect of each scenario on the intensity of land-use competition and agriculturalproductivity loss in the area. The results of this study provide a holistic insight regarding current conditions ofthe Isfahan City and also a simulation environment for planners to evaluate the possible outcomes of theirdecisions on fertile soils and future urban growth patterns.