Markov analysis of land use dynamics – A Case Study in Madagascar

We present a Markov model of a land-use dynamic along a forest corridor of Madagascar. A first approach by the maximum likelihood approach leads to a model with an absorbing state. We study the quasi-stationary distribution law of the model and the law of the hitting time of the absorbing state. According to experts, a transition not present in the data must be added to the model: this is not possible by the maximum likelihood method and we make of the Bayesian approach. We use a Markov chain Monte Carlo method to infer the transition matrix which in this case admits an invariant distribution law. Finally we analyze the two identified dynamics.