Simulating and assessing prospective scenarios: A comparative approach in urban planning

International audienceThe first part of the paper is centered on the phenomena of urban growth, in order to set the rules for a sustainable scenario of urban development. Then we enter the core of the paper that is the comparison of models. For each of the three compared models, we describe its main theoretical characteristics, the chosen parameters, and the obtained results. In section 6, heterogeneity of the produced results is discussed, and we highlight the points of interest and the lacks of the three models. Here we show that results we obtained feed debates about urban growth management. Finally, concluding remarks at the end of the paper address the general topic of the evaluation of the quality of simulation results