A GIS-based analysis and prediction of parcel land-use change in a coastal tourism destination area

Abstract

As an integrated part of the NASA/SC-EPSCoR Wetland Research Project involving three institutions in South Carolina, this study focuses on the land-use change and its impacts. The overall purpose is to better understand the process of coastal land-use change and its consequences in order to minimize negative impacts and to sustain coastal resources and development around nearby wetlands. For the Murrells Inlet component of the project, four immediate objectives were: Seek an alternative approach that emphasizes human aspects of issues related to land-use change; Develop a parcel based GIS model for assessing land-use change in the past; Apply this model to observe and map tenure change, residential change and commercial change for the Murrells Inlet area; and Build and apply a logistic regression model to predict the possibilities of future land-use change for the area.