Output details

Neutral models of landscape change as benchmarks in the assessment of model performance

Spatial simulation models are widely used to investigate and manage complex problems, for instance the management of forest fire, the spread of diseases, the growth of cities, the spread of species of plants and animals, and many more. Despite the wide range of applications, diagnostic tools to scrutinize model performance are painfully lacking. The original methods in this paper are the first to facilitate systematic model-to-model comparison integrating multiple criteria and spatial scales. The methods are a substantial contribution to good-modelling-practice. Through implementation in the Map Comparison Kit software, it reaches thousands of academic and non-academic users.