As a solution to the problem of modeling landscape change, LUCAS was
implemented as an ``object-oriented'' C++ application to promote
modularity. It was envisioned that different or additional software
modules could easily be added to existing code as the needs of
investigators changed. Section 5 discusses this
future expansion and Section 4 examines the
details of the modular implementation along
with the development of a parallel version of
LUCAS. The creation of a distributed version of LUCAS, Parallel
LUCAS (pLUCAS), was motivated by the ever more demanding and time
consuming calculations necessary to extend the LUCAS model to other
larger regions. pLUCAS utilizes the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM)
[12], an applications which allows a network of arbitrary
workstations to behave as a single computational unit. This ``virtual
machine'' can then simulate many land-use scenarios in a fraction of
the time required on a single processor.