Preface -- Introduction -- The Impact of Land-Use Policy on Urban Fringe Dynamics -- Long-Term Changes in Configuration of Agriculture and Natural Areas Around Cities in the Netherlands (1900 - 1990).- Investigating Land-Use Dynamics at the Periphery of a Fast-Growing City with Cellular Automata at Two Spatial Scales -- The Spatial Morphology of Oporto's Urban Fringe -- Vascular Plant Species Richness Patterns in Urban Environments - Case Studies from Hannover, Germany and Haifa, Israel -- Future Suburban Development and the Environmental Implications of Lawns: A Case Study in New England, USA.- Land Use-Land Cover Dynamics at the Metropolitan Fringe -- Lichens and Plants in Urban Environment.

As cities are rapidly expanding and encroaching into agricultural and natural areas, a question of primary concern is how this expansion affects surrounding agriculture and natural landscapes. This book presents a wide spectrum of both theoretical and empirical approaches to simulation and assessment of landscape dynamics. The first part presents state-of-the-art modelling approaches pertaining to land-use changes entailed by the urban sprawl, at different spatial resolutions and temporal time scales. The second part is dedicated to case studies of the effects and consequences of the emerging urban-agriculture open space patterns.