Simulating urban development scenarios for Wuhan

With the rapid growth that most Chinese cities experience, urban and transportation planning become increasingly important in developing pathways towards sustainable development. Spatiotemporal simulation models can support understanding of urban dynamics and assessing the impact of policy alternatives by answering questions such as: What will a city look like in the future if different spatial planning alternatives are applied? How will new land use or transport investments affect the populations' access to jobs or specific activities locations in the city? How robust are planning alternatives under different assumptions of socio-economic growth? This paper reports on work that has been carried out in a World Bank funded project to demonstrate methodologies and tools to support Chinese municipalities, such as Wuhan, in developing sound land use and transportation planning strategies based on scenarios of land use change coupled with accessibility indicators. The aspect of sustainability addressed in this study relates to the performance of transport systems and how these influence the livability of the city, measured in terms of accessibility. First, a land use change simulation model (Metronamica) has been set up for the central urban core of Wuhan and calibrated for the period 1994 to 2004 using historic data and expert judgment. Next, seven policy-relevant land use change scenarios have been developed, starting with a Business-as-Usual scenario, assuming a continuation of historic land use dynamics combined with current land use and transport policies. These scenarios have been analyzed to show possible future land use developments and the impact of different policy alternatives on urban development. Two activity-based accessibility indicators have accordingly been measured in a GIS environment to study the effects of the land use change and transport interventions on accessibility to jobs over time. In addition, eight accessibility scenarios have been linked to the land use change scenarios. The results from these scenarios showcase the 'cause-effect' relation between planning, land developments and accessibility and demonstrate the utility of the approach and methods. Such an approach combining scenario based spatial analysis and simulation can provide an added value to urban policy and practice in China and elsewhere.