J.E.C. Dekkers

Land-use Simulation for Water Management: Application of the Land Use Scanner Model in Two Large-Scale Scenario Studies

Land use is one of the major components influencing local hydrological characteristics. Future land use is thus important in studies that focus on the upcoming challenges for water management. This chapter describes two applications of the Land Use Scannermodel on a national or larger scale, in which the scenario method is used to simulate future land-use patterns.

A utility-based suitability framework for integrated local-scale land-use modelling

Abstract Models that simulate land-use patterns often use either inductive, data-driven approaches or deductive, theory-based methods to describe the relative strength of the social, economic and biophysical forces that drive the various sectors in the land system. An integrated framework is proposed here that incorporates both approaches based on a unified assessment for local land suitability following a monetary, utility-based logic. The framework is illustrated with a hedonic pricing analysis of urban land values and a net present value assessment for agricultural production system in combination with statistics-based assessments of land suitability for other sectors. The results show that limited difference exists between the most commonly applied inductive approaches that use either multinomial or binomial logistic regression specifications of suitability. Land-use simulations following the binomial regression based suitability values that were rescaled to bid prices (reflecting relative competitiveness) perform better for all individual land-use types. Performance improves even further when a land value based description of urban bid prices is added to this approach. Interestingly enough the better fitting description of suitability for urban areas also improves the ability of the model to simulate correct locations for business estates and greenhouses. The simulation alternatives that consider the net present values for agricultural types of land use show the relevance of this approach for understanding the spatial distribution of these types of land use. The combined use of urban land values and net present values for agricultural land use in defining land suitability performs best in our validation exercise. The proposed methodology can also be used to incorporate information from other research frameworks that describe the utility of land for different types of use.

Not urbanization level but socioeconomic, physical and social neighbourhood characteristics are associated with presence and severity of depressive and anxiety disorders

Background Which neighbourhood factors most consistently impact on depression and anxiety remains unclear. This study examines whether objectively obtained socioeconomic, physical and social aspects of the neighbourhood in which persons live are associated with the presence and severity of depressive and anxiety disorders. Methods Cross-sectional data are from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety including participants (n = 2980) with and without depressive and anxiety disorders in the past year (based on DSM-based psychiatric interviews). We also determined symptom severity of depression (Inventory of Depression Symptomatology), anxiety (Beck Anxiety Inventory) and fear (Fear Questionnaire). Neighbourhood characteristics comprised socioeconomic factors (socioeconomic status, home value, number of social security beneficiaries and percentage of immigrants), physical factors (air pollution, traffic noise and availability of green space and water) and social factors (social cohesion and safety). Multilevel regression analyses were performed with the municipality as the second level while adjusting for individual sociodemographic variables and household income. Results Not urbanization grade, but rather neighbourhood socioecononomic factors (low socioeconomic status, more social security beneficiaries and more immigrants), physical factors (high levels of traffic noise) and social factors (lower social cohesion and less safety) were associated with the presence of depressive and anxiety disorders. Most of these neighbourhood characteristics were also associated with increased depressive and anxiety symptoms severity. Conclusion These findings suggest that it is not population density in the neighbourhood, but rather the quality of socioeconomic, physical and social neighbourhood characteristics that is associated with the presence and severity of affective disorders.

Border Effects in House Prices

We estimate the effect of the Dutch-German border on house prices. In the last 40 years the development of house prices in the Netherlands and Germany has been substantially different. While the Netherlands have been hit by two real estate cycles, prices in Germany have been extraordinary stable. We develop a model for studying house prices and the impact of the border. Then we study the development of Dutch house prices close to the German border in the period 1985-2013. Next, combining German and Dutch real estate datasets, we study the jump in the housing price occurring at the border. Using different estimation strategies, we find that ask prices of comparable housing drop by about 16% when one crosses the Dutch-German border. Given that price discounts from the last observed asking price are substantially larger in Germany, we interpret our findings as indicating the willingness of Dutch households to pay up to 26% higher house prices to live among the Dutch.

The Impact of Land-Use Policy on Urban Fringe Dynamics

Concern for the loss of open space around urban areas has given rise to various forms of land-use policy that aim to steer urban fringe dynamics. This chapter explores the potential of geospatial analysis to characterise land-use dynamics in the urban fringe and in particular focuses on the impact of land-use policies in steering these developments. The Netherlands is used as a case study because this country has a long-standing tradition of applying such polices and is generally considered to represent a successful example of restrictive spatial planning. Yet, these policies have received substantial criticism in the past decade and are currently being transformed by the National Government. Based on the observed degree of success of current open space preservation policies we make an attempt to simulate the potential implications of the proposed policy changes.

Explaining Land-Use Transition in a Segmented Land Market

Spatial planning policies can create segmented sub-markets for land, leading to an artificial scarcity for certain types of land use (usually urban land use) and higher land prices in that submarket, which can eventually spillover to other sub-markets. In a spatial context, these spillover effects are mainly observed in the urban fringes, where rural land owners often ask a higher price for their rural land because of expectations that this will be converted into urban land. The price for rural parcels in the urban fringe is thus related to the probability that these parcels will be put to urban uses in the (near) future, which is referred to as the ‘transition probability’. Figure 9.1 describes this relation in more detail. Land prices decline as the distance from the city centre increases. In situations where there are no spatial planning constraints (Fig. 9.1a), there is no gap between land prices at the urban fringe. If there is a spatial planning policy being implemented that restricts building on the fringe of a city (Fig. 9.1b), a sudden change in land prices can be observed for rural parcels immediately bordering the city. When it is expected that these limitations along the fringe may be lifted, the market price for those rural parcels will be somewhere between the urban and the agricultural land price. If the market price is closer to the agricultural land price, there is a low transition probability, and if the market price is closer to the urban land price, there is a high transition probability.

Electronic Ticketing in Public Transport: A Field Study in a Rural Area

The NoordNed Mobile Ticketing service (in this article referred to as M-Ticketing) is an early example of electronic ticketing in the Netherlands. Using this service, customers no longer need to buy a ticket at a ticket office or ticket machine. Instead, people can order M-Tickets through the Internet or by calling a voice response system and receive their M-ticket on their mobile phone through the Short Message Service (SMS). This article describes the innovative aspects and customer expectations of the service offered. Consumer adoption of the service was evaluated by conducting a field study. It appears that the service is most attractive for semifrequent public transport users. The participants were also asked for their willingness-to-pay (WTP) for additional mobile services. This WTP level turned out to be rather low so we must conclude that it would be difficult to develop additional services as a profit center in order to make the ticketing commercially feasible. The most interesting additional service was en-route real-time travel information. A regression analysis of WTP for this service revealed that it depends positively on features of travel behavior such as the number of transfers per trip.

The Adoption of Geo-ICT in Economics: Increasing Opportunities for Spatial Research in Economics

The significance of location and its diverse economic impacts is increasingly recognised and studied in the discipline of economics. Geo-ICT is used mostly in the subdiscipline of spatial economics, where GIS software is used in combination with existing spatially-explicit theories. The increasing availability of spatial data, analytical methods and computer processing power has offered researchers ways of exploring spatially-related phenomena in previously impenetrable fields like the dynamics behind the use of space. This trend will continue in future since dynamic location technologies are currently being adopted throughout society, offering new opportunities for collecting near real-time location data on objects and people. This chapter describes the discipline of economics and focuses on the use of Geo-ICT, in the past, present and near future, in the field of spatial economics.

Analysing and simulating urban density: Exploring the difference between policy ambitions and actual trends in the Netherlands

This chapter explores the potential of geospatial analysis to characterize land use dynamics in urban areas and the surrounding urban fringe. It focuses on the difference between policy ambitions and reality with respect to urban densification. Policy ambitions for the containment of urban development are ambitious in the Netherlands, as is evident from the many local objectives to concentrate residential development within existing urban areas. These ambitions are formulated as target shares of the total net increase in housing stock that should be realized within designated urban area boundaries. Following a GIS-based analysis of local changes in housing stock between 2000 and 2008, we are able to describe actual intensification shares and residential densities in newly-developed urban areas. We observe that, especially in the already densely-populated western part of the country, the realized urban intensification shares are below the specified policy goals/ambition levels. Using these observations along with scenario-based projections of the regional increases in housing stock, we are able to determine the demand for new urban land in 2020. Using a land use simulation model, we simulate the urban development processes until 2020 according to two scenarios and two policy alternatives. In the first policy alternative, growth in the number of house units is based upon policy ambitions, while in the second scenario growth is based upon observed trends over the past decade. The results show that current policy ambitions related to urban intensification levels will greatly help in containing the substantial urban growth that is projected in the case of a high economic and population growth scenario. If urban development follows past trends, unabated, thus demonstrating relatively low urban intensification shares, large-scale urban extensions are likely to occur.

Cohort profile : the Geoscience and Health Cohort Consortium (GECCO) in the Netherlands

Purpose In the Netherlands, a great variety of objectively measured geo-data is available, but these data are scattered and measured at varying spatial and temporal scales. The centralisation of these geo-data and the linkage of these data to individual-level data from longitudinal cohort studies enable large-scale epidemiological research on the impact of the environment on public health in the Netherlands. In the Geoscience and Health Cohort Consortium (GECCO), six large-scale and ongoing cohort studies have been enriched with a variety of existing geo-data. Here, we introduce GECCO by describing: (1) the phenotypes of the involved cohort studies, (2) the collected geo-data and their sources, (3) the methodology that was used to link the collected geo-data to individual cohort studies, (4) the similarity of commonly used geo-data between our consortium and the nationwide situation in the Netherlands and (5) the distribution of geo-data within our consortium. Participants GECCO includes participants from six prospective cohort studies (eg, 44 657 respondents (18–100 years) in 2006) and it covers all municipalities in the Netherlands. Using postal code information of the participants, geo-data on the address-level, postal code-level as well as neighbourhood-level could be linked to individual-level cohort data. Findings to date The geo-data could be successfully linked to almost all respondents of all cohort studies, with successful data-linkage rates ranging from 97.1% to 100.0% between cohort studies. The results show variability in geo-data within and across cohorts. GECCO increases power of analyses, provides opportunities for cross-checking and replication, ensures sufficient geographical variation in environmental determinants and allows for nuanced analyses on specific subgroups. Future plans GECCO offers unique opportunities for (longitudinal) studies on the complex relationships between the environment and health outcomes. For example, GECCO will be used for further research on environmental determinants of physical/psychosocial functioning and lifestyle behaviours.