Population, Economic and Information Flows

[Convenors: Bell and Wilson (ECR) U Qld].

Spatial interaction analysis and modelling focus on the space-time dynamics of phenomena such as migration, business interactions, information flows, and diffusion of innovations (the latter also involving network analysis), and these may be investigated at different levels of scale.

Emphasis for project development includes:

1. matrix analysis to understand the way population and economic flows out to connect places to create differential levels of regional growth and development;
2. using spatial interaction models and tools to analyse journey to work data to understand linkage patterns between places in evaluating planning scenarios for improving the jobs-housing balance in large scale urban regions to meet sustainability criteria for regional planning;
3. evaluating the polling implications of patterns of international permanent migration and short-term business migration flows; and
4. investigating the implications of multi-purpose trips and multi-destination trips through pathway analysis to inform planning strategy in fields such as transport planning in urban regions and the marketing of tourist destinations.