December 21, 2009 What might our landscape look like in the near
future? More specifically, where has urban growth occurred in
the last thirty years, and where is it likely to occur over the
next twenty years? Researchers at UNC Asheville and UNC
Charlotte, as part of an ongoing Renaissance Computing Institute
(RENCI) project, are conducting analyses that answer these types
of questions, and also developing tools to help policy makers
and planners understand and manage rapid urban growth. . Using
historical satellite imagery, development trends, population
data and population projections, they’ve been able to design an
Urban Growth Model that can generate visual representations of
what our landscape may look like in the future. Building upon a
similar study of the Greater Charlotte region, released in 2007,
researchers are in the process of analyzing land conversion
patterns for all of western North Carolina. The initial results
of their collaborative research highlight the effect of
development on four weste