  There are many studies dealing with the protection or restoration of wetlands
and the sustainable economic growth of cities as separate subjects. This study
investigates the conflict between the two in an area where city growth is
threatening a protected wetland area. We develop a stochastic cellular
automaton model for urban growth and apply it to the Vecht area surrounding the
city of Hilversum in the Netherlands, using topographic maps covering the past
150 years. We investigate the dependence of the urban growth pattern on the
values associated with the protected wetland and other types of landscape
surrounding the city. The conflict between city growth and wetland protection
is projected to occur before 2035, assuming full protection of the wetland. Our
results also show that a milder protection policy, allowing some of the wetland
to be sacrificed, could be beneficial for maintaining other valuable
landscapes. This insight would be difficult to achieve by other analytical
means. We conclude that even slight changes in usage priorities of landscapes
can significantly affect the landscape distribution in near future. Our results
also point to the importance of a protection policy to take the value of
surrounding landscapes and the dynamic nature of urban areas into account.
