Modeling Land Use Change in the Washington, DC-Baltimore Region

Future Scenarios

Study area, centered on the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area, where the SLEUTH model was applied.

In conjunction with colleagues at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, we developed three alternative future scenarios under which to forecast growth trends: current trends, managed growth, and ecologically sustainable.  To implement these scenarios, we developed different excluded layers (see images at right) to reflect varying levels of resource protection and growth management policies.

The current trends scenario reflects policies that are currently in place.  All parks and easements are fully protected from development.  Large, contiguous wetlands and riparian buffer strips along major streams have partial protection as does land adjacent to tidal waters.  In Maryland, land outside the state-designated Priority Funding Areas has some protection to reflect Maryland's Smart Growth initiative.  Major new planned roads, such as the intercounty connector, and road widenings and planned or early stage development in 2000 are also included in this scenario.

The managed growth scenario reflects a stronger commitment to spatially focused growth and resource protection.  Wetlands, riparian buffer strips, and the tidal buffer have higher levels of protection.  New "smart growth areas" that we developed for both Maryland and Virginia ensure that new development is focused in established urban centers.  Forest and agriculture have a higher level of protection, and there are no new major roads.

The third scenario, ecologically sustainable, reflects a more stringent set of policies targeted toward limited growth and natural resource protection.  The data elements for the excluded layer are similar to those in the managed growth scenario, but protection levels are higher.

Forecasts of Future Development: 2030

To create forecasts of future development (see images at right), we initialized SLEUTH with the map of urban extent for 2000 and projected future growth using the parameter set we derived during calibration.

The results of the scenario forecasts show higher dispersed development patterns for the current trends than the managed growth scenario, while the ecologically sustainable scenario shows highly constrained growth over the whole study area, with most growth occurring in and around existing urban centers.

If the rate of growth that has occurred over the recent past continues into the future, the impacts on resource lands could be significant.

Potential loss of resource lands by 2030 if current growth patterns continue.

©Woods Hole Research Center, 2007