Adapting Travel Models and Urban Models to Forecast Greenhouse Gases in California

Abstract

This paper reviews the California Global Warming Solutions Act, which motivates both urban modeling by countywide agencies and the modeling of energy use in buildings and travel and the resultant greenhouse gases (GHGs). The authors identify principles for urban models and travel models, as applied to countywide land use plans and transportation plans. Two urban models, UPlan (a simple one) and PECAS (a complex one) were developed by the authors and are outlined here. The energy use and GHG impacts calculator, which will take as an input floor space data from UPlan or PECAS, is described. The methods used in this calculator and how it will be applied within the two urban models are described. The UPlan implementation is described in detail and an example given. Finally, the limits of UPlan are identified and an explanation for how PECAS may be able to perform all of the economic evaluations called for in the California Climate Act is provided.

Regional Assessment of Urban Impacts on Landcover and Open Space Finds a Smart Urban Growth Policy Performs Little Better than Business as Usual

“…We used human population growth projections on a county-by-county basis from the PPIC for 2050 [21], [34], in conjunction with county general development plans [35], and landscape features that attract or discourage urban growth (for details on model parameterization see Appendix SI). UPlan uses these inputs to spatially project new development for housing, commercial and industrial structures iteratively, placing each of the projected number of new units on the landscape into the grid cell with the highest attraction value, until all projected new growth is allocated.…”

The impacts of alternative patterns of urbanization on greenhouse gas emissions in an agricultural county

“…UPlan is an open-source, relatively simple model that can be run on a subcounty area, a county, or a group of counties. It is suitable for fast, broad-brush urbanization modeling of large land areas using multiple development scenarios, and more than 20 counties in California have used it for urban-growth projections, including a group of rural counties in the San Joaquin Valley which employed it to develop an urban-growth blueprint (Johnston, Roth, and Bjorkman 2009). It has also been employed to assess the impacts of urbanization policies and growth on natural resources (Beardsley et al 2009), to understand the risk of wildfires in rural woodlands from urban growth (Byrd, Rissman, and Merenlander 2009), and to evaluate the effect of land use policies on natural land conversion (Merenlender, Hilty, and Lidicker 2006).…”

Modeling Impacts to Agricultural Revenue and Government Service Costs from Urban Growth

“…UPlan is suitable for rapid scenario-based modeling because of the ease with which the data sets can be configured, low computational demands, and the transparency of its assumptions and algorithms to planners and policy-makers. UPlan has been used to evaluate the wildfire risks to future urban growth (Byrd et al,Rissman, & Merenlender, 2009), assess the impacts of different growth policies on natural resources (Beardsley, Thorne, Roth, Gao, & McCoy, 2009), effects on conservation connectivity (Huber, Thorne, Roth, & McCoy, 2011), has been adapted to calculate greenhouse gas contributions from new urban growth (Johnston Roth, & Bjorkman, 2009), and to evaluate the effectiveness of land use scenarios in reducing vehicle miles travelled (Niemeier, Bai, & Handy, 2011). UPlan was calibrated for the Philadelphia area (Walker , Gao, & Johnston, 2007) and is widely used in California by county governments (by at least 24 counties) as planning support for zoning decisions (Johnston , McCoy, Kirn, & Fell, 2004).…”