Greenhouses, land use change, and predictive models: MaxEnt and Geomod working together

Abstract

We have developed a methodology which predicts the expansion of greenhouses and evaluates the results, combining a species distribution model (MaxEnt) and a simulator of land use change (Geomod). In the simulations, we take into account not only the effect of different environmental variables governing greenhouse expansion but also the spatial distribution of the error. The method has been tested on a region of SE Spain to establish future greenhouse-expansion scenarios. The results indicate that the combination of MaxEnt and Geomod improves the predictive capacity, as well as the functional interpretation of land use change models.