Understanding Anasazi culture change through agent-based modeling
Dynamics in human and primate societies
Further towards a taxonomy of agent-based simulation models in environmental management
Mathematics and Computers in Simulation - Selected papers of the MSSANZ/IMACS 14th biennial conference on modelling and simulation
Modelling of spatial dynamics and biodiversity conservation on Lure mountain (France)
Environmental Modelling & Software
Environmental Modelling & Software
Position Paper: Modelling with stakeholders
Environmental Modelling & Software
Context in social simulation: why it can't be wished away
Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory
Spatial agent-based models for socio-ecological systems: Challenges and prospects
Environmental Modelling & Software
Alternative scenarios of green consumption in Italy: An empirically grounded model
Environmental Modelling & Software
Environmental Modelling & Software
Hi-index | 0.00 |
We report results from over 20,000 runs of a coupled agent-based model of land use change and species metacommunity model. We explored the effect of increasing government incentive to improve biodiversity, in the context of other influences on land manager decision-making: aspirations, input costs, and price variability. The experiments test the four kinds of policy varying along two dimensions: activity-versus-outcome-based incentive, and individual-versus-collective incentive. The results from the experiments using boundedly rational agents, and comparison with profit-maximisation reveal thresholds in incentive schemes, where a sharp increase in environmental benefit occurs for a small increase in incentive. Further, the context affects the level of incentive at which turning points occur, and the degree of effect. Variability in outcome can also change with incentive and context, and some evidence suggests that environmental benefits are not always monotone increasing functions of incentives. Intuitively, if the incentive signal is large enough, land managers will farm the subsidy; and if the subsidy does not exactly match desired landscape outcomes, deterioration in environmental benefits may occur for higher incentives. Our results, whilst they suggest that outcome-based incentives may be more robust than activity-based, also highlight the importance of context in determining the success of agri-environmental incentive schemes. As such, they lend theoretical support to schemes, such as the Scottish Rural Development Programme, that include a localised component.