CLUE land use model

CLUE (Conversion of Land Use change and its Effects) is a model that is used for carrying out a regional analysis of land-use change. Land-use change, in many countries, is the most important driver of biodiversity change. For assessment of future biodiversity loss due to land-use changes, the GLOBIO3 model is integrated with the CLUE land-use model. The integration of GLOBIO3 and CLUE allows assessing the impact of different scenarios or policy alternatives on both land-use change and biodiversity. With the help of the CLUE model, a map of future land-use is generated that can be used as an input layer for the assessment of future biodiversity. CLUE quantifies land-use changes by defining the bio-geophysical and human drivers of agricultural land use, on the basis of current land use. Land-use scenario information and thematic maps of factors determining land-use potentials are used for predicting future land use. For each policy alternative, a future land-use map can be generated and fed into the GLOBIO3 model to calculate its impact on future biodiversity.

The first CLUE model version was made by Tom Veldkamp and Louise Fresco of the Wageningen University and published in 1996. The current version of the model has been updated by Peter Verburg, who works now at the VU University in Amsterdam.

More information about the Clue model, manual, test data and a training download of the freeware model can be found at the IVM model website of the VU University.
The full version of the model can be downloaded from here.

A more user friendly version of the Clue model is called CluMondo. It has been developed in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank. Information, manual and a download of this model can be extracted from the following Greater Mekong Subregion Information Portal