Remote Sensing of Desert Cities in Developing Countries - Remote Sensing of Urban and Suburban Areas - page 246

model, which links the changes in dependant variables (i.e., land use changes) to
the changes in independent variables (i.e., human activities). This postulates a linear
relationship between the dependent and independent variables, which can be repre-
sented and processed mathematically (Weicheng et al. 2002 ). Nagai et al. ( 2002 )
developed a new methodology to reconstruct the long-term land cover changes
from fragmentary observational data and knowledge of the changes. Genetic algo-
rithm has also been used as an interpolation method to create most probable spatial-
temporal distribution of land cover categories. A convenient classifier such as
maximum likelihood could then be applied to the output of the genetic interpolation
algorithm to construct a long-term land cover changes during.

Urban Information Systems (UIS) : Cities typically manage considerable collection
of land-related information. However, the traditional separation of this information
into different components themes, combined with disjointed information related to
management regimes, leads to a considerable loss in the value of the information
as a resource. City-wide Land Information Management (LIM) provides the means
to integrate these components of land information into truly corporate information
resource. Figure 13.2 below illustrates how city-wide LIM can add value by com-
bining information concerning use, condition, value and tenure of land and dissemi-
nating this to the decision makers (UN-Habitat and FIG 2002 ).

Justice/Law

Land
Tenure

Citywide
LIM

Land Use/
Condition

Land
Value

LIM

Planning /
Environment/

Finance/
Taxation

Maintenance

Sustainable Development
Decision Making

Fig. 13.2 Citywide LIM supporting sustainable development decision making (Adapted from
UN-Habitat and FIG 2002 )