From Regional LULC Model to Urban Population Density Simulation in Wallonia

Abstract

Cities must develop ''Smart'' management and planning strategies to mitigate the challenges caused by urban population growth. The SmartPop project proposes a LULC model and dasymetric population density maps to Walloon policy makers for analyzing and simulating future city development and localization of citizens. In this study, the constrained Cellular Automata LULC change model developed for Flanders and the Brussels-Capital Region is applied to the Walloon Region. This paper presents the first outputs from both parts of the project. On the one hand, maps of current and simulated LULC in 2050, resulting from the the first prototype of the LULC model are presented. Secondly, the dasymetric mapping protocol developed for Flanders is calibrated with Walloon data. The resulting population density map is validated with anonymous data of the National Register of Natural Persons. This project makes use of existing tools and data to propose a common spatial planning model for Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels.