Research of urban space expansion based on GIS and CA Model: — A case study in Wuxi New District

Urban planning is human purposeful, conscious social activity. It is influenced by nature and human society. Research of urban planning and urban space expansion is in the forefront of global urban research, and is one of the hot topics. China is troubled by population growth, lack of resources, ecological and environmental degradation, and rational urban development is closely related to sustainable development of important issues. It is needed and valuable to carry out a comprehensive study on urban space expansion because of multi-cause and problem´s complex structure. The simulation of urban planning is a kind of effective way to understand how urban space expands. The aim of this paper is to simulate and study urban space expansion by the realization of USE-CA (Urban Space Expansion-Cellular Automata) model.