THE APPLICATION OF THE MODEL OF CELLULAR AUTOMATA (CA) ON THE ISLAND OF SKIATHOS, GREECE

CA models are systems consisting of blisters tesserae which interact in a simple manner even though they exhibit a complicated behavior. These models can produce very complex structures and can be used for exploration of an expanded spectrum of fundamental dynamics and development issues. It is an approach for modeling of open, complex and self organized systems and emphasizes the ways in which local decisions can lead to the creation of global standards. A CA model is a discrete dynamic system in which space is divided into regular territorial cells and time progresses in discrete steps. Each cell in this system receives a state. The state of each cell is updated in accordance with local rules, for example, the state of a cell of a given moment depends on its situation and the situation of adjacent cells in the previous time step. In this paper, we used the thematic maps of 1996 and 2007 for the island of Skiathos for making the forecast for 2020. From the prediction, it was concluded that in 2020 in the island of Skiathos there would be an increase of urban areas and a reduction of the crop areas, the grasslands and the forest areas. These results would be useful for the spatial and environmental Planning of the island.