Land-cover change model validation by an ROC method for the Ipswich watershed, Massachusetts, USA

✍ Scribed by R.Gil Pontius Jr.; Laura C Schneider

• Book ID: 114153504
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 291 KB
• Volume: 85
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0167-8809
• DOI: 10.1016/s0167-8809(01)00187-6

✦ Synopsis

Scientists need a better and larger set of tools to validate land-use change models, because it is essential to know a model's prediction accuracy. This paper describes how to use the relative operating characteristic (ROC) as a quantitative measurement to validate a land-cover change model. Typically, a crucial component of a spatially explicit simulation model of land-cover change is a map of suitability for land-cover change, for example a map of probability of deforestation. The model usually selects locations for new land-cover change at locations that have relatively high suitability. The ROC can compare a map of actual change to maps of modeled suitability for land-cover change. ROC is a summary statistic derived from several two-by-two contingency tables, where each contingency table corresponds to a different simulated scenario of future land-cover change. The categories in each contingency table are actual change and actual non-change versus simulated change and simulated non-change. This paper applies the theoretical concepts to a model of deforestation in the Ipswich watershed, USA.