Land Change Modeler Overview

Download a PDF of the Land Change Modeler brochure.

OverviewThe Land Change Modeler for ArcGIS is a software extension for analyzing and predicting landcover change and assessing the implications of that change for biodiversity. The Land Change Modeler is also available and integrated within the IDRISI software, sold separately.

Clark Labs worked with Conservation International over a period of several years to develop a flexible software environment that could be used for a variety of land change scenarios and contexts. It was released within the IDRISI software in 2006. Integration of the Land Change Modeler with the ArcGIS software broadens its accessibility for users concerned with land change, conservation and biodiversity.

The software interface is sequentially organized around the major task areas for change analysis, prediction and habitat analysis to ensure a smooth workflow. Users have access to a context-sensitive help system and a comprehensive set of tutorial exercises and data included with the software which provide a planned and structured approach to learning.

With Land Change Modeler, you can:

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Analyze change. Specify two landcover maps of different dates and immediately see gains and losses by category, net change as well as specific category transitions and exchanges in both map and graphical form.


The Change Analysis panel provides a set of tools for understanding the nature and extent of landcover change, including graphs of gains and losses, net changes and contributions experienced by any category. A simple one-click interface provides the ability to generate rapid maps of change, persistence, specific transitions and exchanges between categories.

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Predict change. Create future scenarios of change, “hard predictions,” with a neural network-based empirical model, or a map of vulnerability to change with the “soft” prediction model.


Running the prediction process will yield hard and soft prediction maps. This soft prediction maps vulnerability to change for a selected set of transitions and provides a comprehensive assessment of change potential.

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Assess the impact for habitat and biodiversity. Undertake habitat assessment, gap analysis, habitat fragmentation and biodiversity analysis.


The Habitat Assessment panel maps areas into categories of primary and secondary habitat, primary and secondary potential corridor and unsuitable lands based on landcover and habitat suitability. The user specifies parameters such as home range size, buffer widths, and gap crossing distances within range and during dispersal.


The Implications tab of Land Change Modeler provides a set of utilities for species distribution modeling. In this illustration, a range polygon has been refined by establishing confidence in various portions of the original polygons based on a modeling from environmental variables. This confidence mapping then weights the mean and variance-covariance matrix that underlies the calculation of Mahalanobis Typicalities for modeling from presence data.

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Plan for the future. Assess how interventions, such as constraints, incentives, or infrastructural changes impact the prediction. Make better decisions.

Visit the Modules page for a full list of capabilities.