There have been extensive efforts in the field of land-use analysis aimed at
understanding past, current and future land-use changes. However, crucial deficiencies
exist in this research area. Land-use models are often not designed to be used as
operational decision support tools for sustainability. This is due to the fact that these
research efforts have focused on land-use analysis and evaluation of their impacts in an
independent manner. There are land-use models that enhance our understanding of landuse
and their driving forces, but they fail to provide indicators to assess the impacts on
sustainability.