Agent-Based Modeling of Humans and Their Environment
Channel: Intelligent Systems for Geosciences Community
Date: 2019-08-06

Agent-Based Modeling of Humans and Their Environment

Marco Jansen, Senior Sustainability Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and Professor, School of Sustainability, Arizona State University
Abstract:

Agent-based modeling is a modeling approach frequently used across many disciplines, especially social and ecological sciences. It enables to create simulation models of the actions of agents representing individuals, households, colonies, cells, nations, etc. The micro-level behavioral rules of the agents are used to study the macro-level outcomes of complex-adaptive systems. There is an increasing interest to connect geoscience models with agent-based models to represent human behavior impacting geological processes.

In this talk I will first discuss the agent-based modeling method, especially the challenge to represent human behavior as algorithmic statements. Then I will show a number of examples of collaborations between social scientists and geoscientists using agent-based modeling, and I end with a brief discussion on model-coupling, a broader trend in modeling that may enable to develop more integrated models with expert knowledge

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About: 
Dr. Janssen has worked on integrated assessment models of climate change and sustainable development, and done research on environmental economics and the evolution of institutional rules. He currently studies how robust interactions between social agents and their environment evolve or can be designed. He is interested in understanding how ecological dynamics, institutional arrangements, and human decision-making characteristics affect how human activities fit with the environment. Dr. Janssen teaches courses in agent-based modeling, and institutions and the environment.