Agent-based modeling of deforestation in southern Yucatán, Mexico, and reforestation in the Midwest United States

doi:10.1073/pnas.0705802104

Agent-based modeling of deforestation in southern Yucatán, Mexico, and reforestation in the Midwest United States

Steven M. Manson*,^† and
Tom Evans^‡

*Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, 414 Social Sciences, 267 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455; and
^‡Department of Geography and Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University, 701 East Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405

Edited by B. L. Turner II, Clark University, Worcester, MA, and approved August 31, 2007 (received for review June 20, 2007)

Abstract

We combine mixed-methods research with integrated agent-based modeling to understand land change and economic decision making in the United States and Mexico. This work demonstrates how sustainability science benefits from combining integrated agent-based modeling (which blends methods from the social, ecological, and information sciences) and mixed-methods research (which interleaves multiple approaches ranging from qualitative field research to quantitative laboratory experiments and interpretation of remotely sensed imagery). We test assumptions of utility-maximizing behavior in household-level landscape management in south-central Indiana, linking parcel data, land cover derived from aerial photography, and findings from laboratory experiments. We examine the role of uncertainty and limited information, preferences, differential demographic attributes, and past experience and future time horizons. We also use evolutionary programming to represent bounded rationality in agriculturalist households in the southern Yucatán of Mexico. This approach captures realistic rule of thumb strategies while identifying social and environmental factors in a manner similar to econometric models. These case studies highlight the role of computational models of decision making in land-change contexts and advance our understanding of decision making in general.

Footnotes

^†To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: manson{at}umn.edu
Author contributions: S.M.M. and T.E. designed research, performed research, contributed new reagents/analytic tools, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Abbreviations:

LCS,

land-change science;

SYPR,

southern Yucatán peninsular region;

LUCIM,

land-use changes in the Midwest;

HELIA,

human–environment integrated land assessment.