Spatial Simulation

by David O Sullivan

A ground up approach to explaining dynamic social modelling for an interdisciplinary audience Across broad areas of the environmental and social sciences simulation models are an important way to study systems inaccessible to scientific experimental and observational methods and also an essential complement to those more conventional approaches The contemporary research literature is teeming with abstract simulation models whose presentation is mathematically demanding and requires a high level of knowledge of quantitative and computational methods and approaches Furthermore simulation models designed to represent specific systems and phenomena are often complicated and as a result difficult to reconstruct from their descriptions in the literature This book aims to provide a practical and accessible account of dynamic spatial modelling while also equipping readers with a sound conceptual foundation in the subject and a useful introduction to the wide ranging literature Spatial Simulation Exploring Pattern and Process is organised around the idea that a small number of spatial processes underlie the wide variety of dynamic spatial models Its central focus on three building blocks of dynamic spatial models forces of attraction and segregation individual mobile entities and processes of spread guides the reader to an understanding of the basis of many of the complicated models found in the research literature The three building block models are presented in their simplest form and are progressively elaborated and related to real world process that can be represented using them Introductory chapters cover essential background topics particularly the relationships between pattern process and spatiotemporal scale Additional chapters consider how time and space can be represented in more complicated models and methods for the analysis and evaluation of models Finally the three building block models are woven together in a more elaborate example

Hardcover

First published June 1, 2013