Landuse change models are typically calibrated to reproduce known historic changes. Calibration results can then be assessed by comparing two datasets: the simulated landuse map and the actual landuse map at the same time. A common method for this is the Kappa statistic, which expresses the agreement between two categorical datasets corrected for the expected agreement. This expected agreement is based on a stochastic model of random allocation given the distribution of class sizes. However, when a model starts from an initial landuse map and makes changes to it, that stochastic model does not pose a meaningful reference level. Read More
