Integrating Geographic Information Systems and Agent-Based Modeling Techniques for Simulating Social and Ecological Processes

This volume offers perspectives on using Geographic Information Systems in connection with agent-based modeling techniques to dynamically simulate evolutionary, ecological, and social phenomena.

In recent years a strong need has arisen to improve the detail, realism, and validity of such models.

This is due in part to the very real gap between the many models constructed for research purposes and the practical needs of decision-makers. Such models have become vital tools in the direct and indirect management of natural resources. The use of the individual-based perspective in modeling, and arising directly from this, the ability to include intelligent agents as entities within spatially explicit simulation models, allows global phenomena to emerge as a result of interactions between individuals and other aspects of the environment, analogous to the physical world whose complexities are captured in a realistic manner. The inclusion of intelligent agents provides an added advantage of modeling the participation of humans in their environment, and thus the disturbances and changes induced by human activities that are central to many problems in natural resource management.

The book will prove invaluable to anyone seeking to explore the use of intelligent agents for modeling both social and ecological processes and the policy and management implications resulting from such simulations.