Land-use change impact assessment (LUCIA)

The Land-Use Change Impact Assessment (LUCIA) model can be used to assess impacts of landuse
changes on soil productivity and fertility, biomass production, watershed functions and
environmental services. It operates at high spatial and temporal resolution but can so far only handle
small mountainous catchments. It help scientists and land-use planners simulate mid- to-long-term
effects of land-use management and changes on environmental degradation and rehabilitation. It
is explicit in the consequences of plot-level decision making by farmers and thus operates between
the reach of detailed tree–soil–crop interaction models and models that operate at more aggregated
watershed scale.