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Volume XVIII |

A Belief-Desire-Intention Agent-based procedure for urban land growth simulation. A case study of Tehran Metropolitan Region, Iran

Abstract: Urbanization, growth of urban areas, is a process that has been growing rapidly during the last two decades. This phenomenon affects aerobiological, economical, industrial, ecological processes, social control, and the family. Hence, the prediction of the urban area extent has an important role in the future decision of the municipality. Multi-Agent System (MAS) is a proper tool for simulation and modeling process, which has been used for solving different types of spatial and non-spatial problems. In this article, we use MAS for urban simulation in the rural area around Tehran, which is the most populated and the fastest-growing city of Iran. In this paper, the behavior of three groups of agents: environmentalist, industrialist, and resident are simulated. These three groups are the dominant and influential population in the formation of urban texture. In this research, the behavior of these three groups of agents is specified, according to a series of map layers, such as slope, aspect, soil type, distance of urban areas, roads, and so on. The Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) architecture of agents is used for the simulation, which is defined based on some variables, functions, and coefficients. The simulation is carried out based on two different interaction scenarios: Rational and Nash-Equilibria. The future urban area is predicted by a combination of MAS and spatial urban area. To evaluate the proposed model, the comparison of the predicted area is made at different times and scenarios. The results of implementation in different scenarios show that the residents of the study area follow the Nash-Equilibria interaction with Kappa Coefficient accuracy of 0.8104.

Volume XVIII |

Romanian born population residing in Hungary, 2011-2017

Abstract: Foreign citizens began to immigrate to Hungary following its democratic transformation. Ethnicity had a decisive role during this period: mostly people with Hungarian nationality arrived. Later, following Hungary’s accession to the European Union, global trends had an impact on the Hungarian migration networks: Hungary’s migratory source extended, and it was able to attract foreign citizens from greater distances.Thus, two levels of international migration to Hungary are markedly separated: the impact of global migration and the movements from the countries of the Carpathian Basin to Hungary. Within Europe, the primary weight of neighbouring countries is linked to cross-border linguistic and culture relations. International migration to Hungary is characterised by short distances, and the majority of the immigrant population has Hungarian nationality or is native speaker of Hungarian.Most immigrants to Hungary are arriving from Romania, so the aim of the article is to analyse the social, economic and demographic characteristics of the migrants according to their areas of birth.Migration flows between the two countries have been territorially concentrated; one quarter of the movements between 2011 and 2017 took place between Central Hungary and the Central Romanian Development Region. In the choice of the new place of residence, in addition to the economic centre areas border regions also play an important role, which can partly be explained by the phenomenon of circular migration, and partly by the easier interaction with those family members who have remained home.

Volume XVIII |

Estimating the tourist carrying capacity for protected areas. A case study for Natura 2000 sites from North-Western Romania

Abstract: The estimation of the tourist support capacity for three Natura 2000 sites located in North-Westerm Romania and the appropriate use of a quantitative methodology adapted to the current working techniques are the main objectives of this scientific approach. In this respect, parameters were determined for obtaining the physical carrying capacity, then the resulting value was modified by the coefficients related to the correction factors. They also consider CAV_NDVI, a factor reflecting the abundance of vegetation and the value of the NDVI spectral index at pixel level, used to quantify the state of vegetation health, as a measure of the ecological status of the sites. The obtained results highlight the sensitivity of the algorithms used for the correction factors and the possibilities of converting these results into elements with practical possibilities for the sustainable sites management.

Volume XVIII |

Analysis of geographic hierarchy from attributes of local government area in Nigeria

Abstract: Natural events and entities often create structure and as such exhibits scaling in their organisation in space and over time. Hierarchy is a common feature of natural and social systems. Analysis of the hierarchy could support a better understanding of the structure and the function of different places across a landscape, thus, informing better policy and interventions for sustainable development. The study examined the hierarchy in selected data at local government authorities (LGA) level. Population, road network, and boundary data were sourced, processed and analysed within ArcGIS Software to confirm agreement or otherwise with Zipf’s law and showcase the structure formed by these attributes across the LGAs in Nigeria. Head-tail break was adopted to identify the hierarchy within the datasets. Results showed that population, area, population density, and road density exhibits scaling. For population, area, population density, and road density there are 6, 5,4 and 3 classes across the LGAs. These classes represent natural and dynamic classification which are rooted in the data. Evidently, the results clearly indicate that there are more classes than the usually dichotomous classification which reinforces dualism in development. The geographic hierarchy formed by these properties gave an insight into the socio-eco-political landscape revealing the unsustainable pattern of development across the country. In conclusion, using natural classification rooted in empirical data is suggested as a better way to classify authorities thereby enhancing discussion in policy formulation to address such inequalities evident in hierarchy currently established.