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Given the rapid rate of land conversion to urban and suburban development, it will be particularly valu- able to understand how future patterns of urbaniza- tion may impact climate- sensitive regions. Theobald (2005) and the EPA (2009) have released a set of tools as part of the Integrated Climate and Land - Use Scenarios (ICLUS) that spatially predicts the impact of development using census data to forecast future housing density patterns. Other modeling frameworks, such as SLEUTH (developed by Keith Clarke, University of California Santa Barbara) utilize land -use change data as the basis for their models. Agarwal et al. (2002) provide a review and assess- ment of a number of different land use models and approaches (see Box 4 -1 for examples). Projec- tions of land use change can be important tools for understanding how patterns of urbanization affect the landscape, particularly at the interface between conservation priority and future urban development areas. Box 4 -1. Examples of tools used to model projected urban development or land use change RENCI Urban Growth Model, UNC- Charlotte: Regional model for projected urban growth by decade through 2030 for a subset of counties in North Carolina. Additional models are in development. The urban growth model developed by RENCI at UNC Charlotte (Renaissance Computing Institute) has been used to look at potential conflicts between development and highly valued natural resources under historical growth patterns and a conservation scenario based on the Green Growth Toolbox (GGT) developed by NCWRC. http: / /renci. uncc.edu /whole -study ICLUS v1.2: Projected U.S. housing density growth across the urban -rural gradient for 2010 -2100 under IPCC scenarios developed by EPA. Implemented as an ArcGIS extension. http: / /cfpub.epa.gov /ncea /cfm /recordisplay. cfm ?deid - 216195 Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment: Online maps showing projected change in land use as percentage of land area change of open space by county for 2000 -2050. http: / /www.cara.r)su.edu /land/ landuseproiections.asp Housing Density Maps: State maps produced by the Silvis Lab at the University of Wisconsin- Madison estimate housing density by decade between 1940 -2030. Maps and data are available for download. http: / /silvis.forest. wisc.edu /Library /HousingData.asr) Uplan: Simple rule based urban growth model intended for regional or county level modeling. Implemented within ArcGIS. http: / /ice.ucdavis.edu /project /uplan SLEUTH: Simulation model for projected land use using complex rules. Program is freely available, but requires a fair amount of programming knowledge and has extensive data requirements. http: / /www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/ projects/gig/project giq.htm The Biodiversity and Spatial Information Center (BaSIC) is using a version of SLEUTH in their Designing Sustain- able Landscapes project. The Southeast Regional Assessment Project (SERAP): The first regional assessment funded by the USGS National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center. In addition to developing landscape change datasets that can be used to project changes to the Southeast's climate and ecosystems, SERAP will integrate models of urbanization and vegetation dynamics with regional climate models to assess how landscape change could impact priority species. SERAP is an extension of BaSIC's Designing Sustainable Landscapes project. http: / /seraQ.er.usgs.gov/