Land use and land cover change has been recognized to have significant environmental impacts in a watershed, such as regulation of water quality. However, the identification of potential regions that are sensitive to land change activities for the protection of water quality poses a grand challenge particularly in a large watershed. These potential regions are o en associated with critical thresholds in terms of, for example, water quality. In this study, we developed an agent-based land changemodel to investigate the relationship between land development activities and water quality in eight North Carolina counties that cover the lower High Rock Lake Watershed area. This agent-based model, which is empirically calibrated, is used to identify space-time locations of those regions at critical thresholds of water quality in this study area. Our experimental results suggest that land development as a form of system stress is of pivotal importance in a ecting water quality at sub watershed level and the state transition of water quality. The agent-based model developed in this study provides solid support for investigations on the impact of land development under alternative scenarios in a large watershed.

中文翻译：

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基于主体的大流域土地变化建模：临界阈值的时空位置

土地利用和土地覆被变化已被认为会对流域的环境产生重大影响，例如水质调节。然而，为保护水质而确定对土地变化活动敏感的潜在区域是一项巨大的挑战，尤其是在大流域。这些潜在区域通常与水质等临界阈值相关。在这项研究中，我们开发了一个基于代理的土地变化模型，以调查覆盖下高岩湖流域地区的北卡罗来纳州八个县的土地开发活动与水质之间的关系。这种基于代理的模型经过经验校准，用于识别本研究区域处于水质临界阈值的这些区域的时空位置。我们的实验结果表明，作为系统压力的一种形式的土地开发对于影响子流域水平的水质和水质状态转变具有至关重要的意义。本研究开发的基于代理的模型为研究大流域替代情景下土地开发的影响提供了坚实的支持。