Simulating Urban Cooperative Expansion in a Single-Core Metropolitan Region Based on Improved CA Model Integrated Information Flow: Case Study of Wuhan Urban Agglomeration in China

Abstract

With the expansion of regional urbanization, urban agglomeration has become the most striking area of China’s urbanization process. Simulation of the urban growth of metropolitan regions is a hot issue and a difficult field of study. Cellular automata (CA) models have shown outstanding performance in urban growth simulations; however, most only for a single city. The gravitational field model was taken into consideration within the CA model, successfully simulating urban agglomeration development; however, it remains inadequate and incomprehensive. Because urban flows may not linearly depend on the distance and because urban outflows can be characterized by information flows, this study proposes an improved CA model, integrating information flows into urban flow intensity (CAInfoUrbanFlow). Information flows among cities were described quantitatively using a free data-sharing tool that allows querying user attention from one place to another. This model has been used to simulate the urban growth of Wuhan Urban Agglomeration (WUA) in China. The results showed that the model performed better than both the traditional CA model and the basic urban flow model (without information flows). Furthermore, this study predicted the urban evolution of WUA for 22, and showed that urban growth primarily will aggregate in the fringe area of the core city of WUA and in the northern part of Wuhan in the future.