Biocomplexity Research
Agent-Based Models of Land Use Decisions and Emergent Land-Use Patterns
The primary goal of this project is to explain long-term, complex change processes in
human-bioecological systems-especially forested regions. We will develop agent-based models
to examine how land-use decisions made at one level (a household) affect outcomes at that
level and at several higher and lower levels in a hierarchically nested set of systems. We
develop two agent-based models to explain land-use patterns in the frontier and post-frontier
Midwest of the United States and the frontier of the Brazilian Amazon. The first model will
address two major puzzles: (1) Why did the descendants of the initial settlers in
nineteenth-century Indiana cut down timber at such a massive and seemingly uneconomic rate
that they eventually denuded the land, causing massive erosion and soil loss, and leading to
substantial farm abandonment? and (2) Why have forests regrown so extensively on privately owned
land when so many public policies are based on the assumption that fragmented, privately owned
parcels are destined never to have significant forest regrowth? The second model will explain
the spatial and temporal patterns of deforestation in the Amazon over the last three decades.
The assumptions we make in the two models will be empirically tested and grounded by rigorous
laboratory experiments. The patterns of land use at any point in time and the processes of change
also will be tested against a rich set of data derived from ground-truthed satellite data, aerial
photographs, land surveys, census data, household interviews, forest mensuration undertaken in a
sample of forest patches, and archival data regarding timber and agricultural prices, input costs,
and land values. After further development and testing, both models will be used to extrapolate
into the future and assess how diverse public policies are likely to affect land use in general
and forest change in particular in these regions. The project will involve three important
capstone activities: a Workshop on Agent-Based Models of Biocomplexity, a synthesis volume to be derived from the Workshop, and a Summer Institute.
The study will have multiple impacts. By achieving an empirically validated understanding
of land-use decisions of individual households under different policy regimes, the study
will produce useful tools for evaluating alternative public policies. Ascertaining how
public inducements, taxation, and constraints affect rates of forest change contributes
to the worldwide effort to find effective methods for stimulating reforestation and
thereby sequestering carbon to offset carbon released into the atmosphere. The study
also addresses fundamental questions related to the appropriate model of human behavior
to use when examining a combination of investment decisions in complex, dynamic
environments. Thus, the study is relevant for achieving an empirically validated
foundation for an array of decision situations beyond those of land use and deforestation.
Tools from multiple social, biological, and physical science disciplines will be combined
and expanded in unique ways and disseminated in publications, workshops, and training
institutes. This research activity was funded as part of the FY2000 Biocomplexity
Special Competition.
408 North Indiana Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47408-3799
Phone: (812) 855-2230
TDD: (812) 855-7654
Fax: (812) 855-2634
Last Updated: May 11, 2005
Comments: cipec@indiana.edu
Copyright
2005, The Trustees of Indiana
University.
