Enabling geosimulations for global scale: Spherical geographic automata

Abstract

Several complex dynamic spatial systems are operating on the global scale. Their representation with existing geosimulation models is limited to planar level and do not consider the curvature of the Earth's surface. Thus, the objective of this study is to propose and develop a spherical geographic automata (SGA) modeling approach to represent and simulate dynamic spatial processes at the global level. The proposed SGA model is implemented for three case studies including simulations of: (1) Game of Life as population dynamics; (2) urban land-use growth; and (3) deforestation all operating on the spherical Earth's surface. Simulation results indicate that the proposed SGA modeling approach can represent spatial processes such as expansion and shrinkage dynamics on the Earth's surface. The proposed approach has the potential to be adopted to represent different complex systems such as ecological, epidemiological, socioeconomic, and Earth systems processes to support environmental management and policymaking at the global level.