Computational Model Library

The Olympic Peninsula ABM works as a virtual laboratory to simulate the existing forestland management practices as followed by different forestland owner groups in the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, and explore how they could shape the future provisions of multifunctional ecosystem services such as Carbon storage and revenue generation under the business-as-usual scenario as well as by their adaptation to interventions. Forestlands are socio-ecological systems that interact with economic, socio-cultural, and policy systems. Two intervention scenarios were introduced in this model to simulate the adaptation of landowner behavior and test the efficacy of policy instruments in promoting sustainable forest practices and fostering Carbon storage and revenue generation. (1) A market-linked carbon offset scheme that pays the forestland owners a financial incentive in the form of a yearly carbon rent. (2) An institutional intervention policy that allows small forest owners (SFLO) to cooperate for increased market access and benefits under carbon rent scenario. The model incorporates the heterogeneous contexts within which the forestland owners operate and make their forest management decisions by parameterizing relevant agent attributes and contextualizing their unique decision-making processes.

In the “World of Cows”, dairy farmers run their farms and interact with each other, the surrounding agricultural landscape, and the economic and political framework. The model serves as an exemplary case of an interdependent human-environment system.

With the model, users can analyze the influence of policies and markets on land use decisions of dairy farms. The land use decisions taken by farms determine the delivered ecosystem services on the landscape level. Users can choose a combination of five policy options and how strongly market prices fluctuate. Ideally, the choice of policy options fulfills the following three “political goals” 1) dairy farming stays economically viable, 2) the provision of ecosystem services is secured, and 3) government spending on subsidies is as low as possible.

The model has been designed for students to practice agent-based modeling and analyze the impacts of land use policies.

ViSA simulates the decision behaviors of different stakeholders showing demands for ecosystem services (ESS) in agricultural landscape. The lack of sufficient supply of ESSs triggers stakeholders to apply different management options to increase their supply. However, while attempting to reduce the supply-demand gap, conflicts arise among stakeholders due to the tradeoff nature of some ESS. ViSA investigates conditions and scenarios that can minimize such supply-demand gap while reducing the risk of conflicts by suggesting different mixes of management options and decision rules.

SESPES: socio-ecological systems and payment for ecosystem services model

Eulàlia Baulenas | Published Sun Dec 20 16:44:58 2020 | Last modified Sun Dec 20 18:43:41 2020

The purpose of this spatially-explicit agent-based model is to intervene in the debate about PES policy design, implementation and context. We use the case for a woodland-for-water payment for ecosystem services (PES) and model its implementation in a local area of Catalonia (NE Spain). The model is based on three sub-models. The structural contains four different designs of a PES policy. The social sub-model includes agent-based factors, by having four types of landowner categories managing or not the forests. This sub-model is based on behavioral studies and assumptions about reception and reaction to incentive policies from European-focused studies. The ecological sub-model is based on climate change data for the area. The output are the evolution of the ecological and social goals of the policy under different policy design scenarios. Our focus in Europe surges from the general context of land abandonment that many Mediterranean areas and Eastern countries are experiencing, and the growing interest from policy-makers and practitioners on the implementation of PES schemes to ameliorate this situation.

FNNR-ABM

Judy Mak | Published Thu Feb 28 04:26:47 2019 | Last modified Sat Dec 7 23:19:51 2019

FNNR-ABM is an agent-based model that simulates human activity, Guizhou snub-nosed monkey movement, and GTGP-enrolled land parcel conversion in the Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve in Guizhou, China.

Quick-start guide:
1. Install Python and set environmental path variables.
2. Install the mesa, matplotlib (optional), and pyshp (optional) Python libraries.
3. Configure fnnr_config_file.py.

Alpine land-use allocation model - ALUAM-AB

Simon Briner | Published Tue Jan 31 08:19:13 2012 | Last modified Sat Apr 27 20:18:21 2013

A model for simulating farmers and foresters response on changing climate and changing socio-economic parameters. Modeled are changes in land-use as well as in ecosystem services provision.

MayaSim: An agent-based model of the ancient Maya social-ecological system

Scott Heckbert | Published Wed Jul 11 19:55:24 2012 | Last modified Tue Jul 2 17:14:49 2013

MayaSim is an agent-based, cellular automata and network model of the ancient Maya. Biophysical and anthropogenic processes interact to grow a complex social ecological system.

This theoretical model includes forested polygons and three types of agents: forest landowners, foresters, and peer leaders. Agent rules and characteristics were parameterized from existing literature and an empirical survey of forest landowners.

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