Simulations of intra-urban land use changes have gradually attracted more attention as these approaches are extremely helpful in regard to decision making and policy formulation. While prior studies mostly focused on methods of developing intra-urban level simulations, very little research has been conducted explain the factors driving intra-urban land use change. Urban planners are highly concerned with how inner-city structures are formed and how they function. Here, to simulate multiple intra-urban land use changes and to identify the contribution of different driving factors, we developed a random forests (RF) algorithm-based cellular automata (CA) simulation model. In this study, the model applied diverse categories of spatial variables, including traffic location factors, environmental factors, public services, and population density, as the driving factors to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of internal urban land use. The CA model was tested using data from the Huicheng district of Huizhou city in the Guangdong province of China. The Model was validated using actual historical land use data from 2000 to 2010. By applying the validated model, multiple intra-urban land use maps were simulated for 2015. Simultaneously, spatial variable importance measures (VIMs) were calculated by using the out-of-bag (OOB) error estimation approach of the RF algorithm. Based on the calculation results, we assessed and analysed the significance of each intra-urban land use driver for this region. This study provides urban planners and relevant scholars with detailed and targeted information that can aid in the formulation of specific planning strategies for different intra-urban land uses and support the future evolution of this area.

Cellular automata (CA) model is a useful tool for simulating spatiotemporal changes of land-use evolution. However, previous CA models have usually ignored the inhomogeneous and mixed land-use situations and simplified the land grid cell as one single land-use type. This study developed a multi-label (ML) convolutional neural network CA (ML-CNN-CA) model to simulate the complex evolution of mixed land uses. The multi-label learning strategy in the proposed model can formulize mixed land uses by labeling multiple land-use types to each grid cell. The transition rules of CA were modified to accommodate the multi-label learning strategy and mined by coupling a CNN network and three interactive mechanisms, including the neighborhood effect, adaptive inertia coefficient, and random factor. The proposed ML-CNN-CA model was applied and examined in a fast-developing city (Huizhou) in the China’s Pearl River Delta region for the mixed land-use simulation during 2009–2013 and 2013–2020. The ML-CNN-CA model with different CNN architectures and a previous artificial neural network (ANN)-based multi-label CA model were also implemented for comparisons. Results show the capability of the ML-CNN-CA model to simulate fine-scale mixed land-use changes with satisfactory performances. Specifically, the simulated mixed land-use patterns agree well with the actual land uses from the morphological perspective. Furthermore, the quantitative assessments demonstrate the performance of the proposed model, showing an accuracy value of 0.912 for 2009–2013 and 0.896 for 2013–2020, and a hamming loss value of 0.048 for 2009–2013 and 0.055 for 2013–2020. The comparisons also show the best performance of the ML-CNN-CA model with the VGG-based architecture and significant outperformance of the proposed model against the previous ANN-based CA model. Multiple sensitivity analyses were also conducted to investigate the uncertainty of the proposed model. The ML-CNN-CA model proposed in this study can provide a new tool for better simulation of fine-scale mixed land-use changes and is expected to help formulate urban planning guidelines and achieve sustainable urban development.

The accessibility provided by the transportation system plays an essential role in driving urban growth and urban functional land use changes. Conventional studies on land use simulation usually simplified the accessibility as proximities and adopted the grid-based simulation strategy, leading to the insufficiencies of characterizing spatial geometry of land parcels and simulating subtle land use changes among urban functional types. To overcome these limitations, an Accessibility-interacted Vector-based Cellular Automata (A-VCA) model was proposed for the better simulation of realistic land use change among different urban functional types. The accessibility at both local and zonal scales derived from actual travel time data was considered as a key driver of fine-scale urban land use changes and was integrated into the vector-based CA simulation process. The proposed A-VCA model was tested through the simulation of urban land use changes in the City of Toronto, Canada, during 2012–2016. A vector-based CA without considering the driving factor of accessibility (VCA) and a popular grid-based CA model (Future Land Use Simulation, FLUS) were also implemented for comparisons. The simulation results reveal that the proposed A-VCA model is capable of simulating fine-scale urban land use changes with satisfactory accuracy and good morphological feature (kappa = 0.907, figure of merit = 0.283, and cumulative producer’s accuracy = 72.83% ± 1.535%). The comparison also shows significant outperformance of the A-VCA model against the VCA and FLUS models, suggesting the effectiveness of the accessibility-interactive mechanism and vector-based simulation strategy. The proposed model provides new tools for a better simulation of fine-scale land use changes and can be used in assisting the formulation of urban and transportation planning.

The spatiotemporal inventory of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the building sector is significant for formulating regional and global warming mitigation policies. Previous studies have attempted to use energy consumption models associated with field investigations to estimate CO₂ emissions from buildings at local scales, or they used spatial proxies to downscale emission sources from large geographic units to grid cells for larger scales. However, mapping the spatiotemporal distributions of CO₂ emissions on a large scale based on buildings remains challenging. Hence, we conducted a case study in England in 2015, wherein we developed linear regression models to analyze monthly CO₂ emissions at the building scale by integrating the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, building data, and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite night-time lights images. The results showed that the proposed model that considered building data and night-time light imagery achieved the best fit. Fine-scale spatial heterogeneity was observed in the distributions of building-based CO₂ emissions compared to grid-based emission maps. In addition, we observed seasonal differences in CO₂ emissions. Specifically, buildings emitted significantly more CO₂ in winter than in summer in England. We believe our results have great potential for use in carbon neutrality policy making and climate monitoring.