People are constantly changing the land surface through construction, agriculture, energy production, and other activities. Changes both in how land is used by people (land use) and in the vegetation, rock, buildings, and other physical material that cover the Earth's surface (land cover) can be described and future land change can be projected using land-change models (LCMs). LCMs are a key means for understanding how humans are reshaping the Earth's surface in the past and present, for forecasting future landscape conditions, and for developing policies to manage our use of resources and the environment at scales ranging from an individual parcel of land in a city to vast expanses of forests around the world. Advancing Land Change Modeling: Opportunities and Research Requirements describes various LCM approaches, suggests guidance for their appropriate application, and makes recommendations to improve the integration of observation strategies into the models. This report provides a summary and evaluation of several modeling approaches, and their theoretical and empirical underpinnings, relative to complex land-change dynamics and processes, and identifies several opportunities for further advancing the science, data, and cyberinfrastructure involved in the LCM enterprise. Because of the numerous models available, the report focuses on describing the categories of approaches used along with selected examples, rather than providing a review of specific models. Additionally, because all modeling approaches have relative strengths and weaknesses, the report compares these relative to different purposes. Advancing Land Change Modeling's recommendations for assessment of future data and research needs will enable model outputs to better assist the science, policy, and decisionsupport communities.
The thesis is an original and novel contribution to land use/land cover change analysis using methods of geosimulation and agent-based modeling. The author implements several traditional methodologies of land use change by means of remote sensing and GIS techniques. An Agent-Based Model was developed in order to simulate land use change in the Tehran metropolitan area, comparing the outcomes of each particular methodology. All methods are compared, and advantages and disadvantages discussed.
This unique book brings together a comprehensive set of papers on the background, theory, technical issues and applications of agent-based modelling (ABM) within geographical systems. This collection of papers is an invaluable reference point for the experienced agent-based modeller as well those new to the area. Specific geographical issues such as handling scale and space are dealt with as well as practical advice from leading experts about designing and creating ABMs, handling complexity, visualising and validating model outputs. With contributions from many of the world’s leading research institutions, the latest applied research (micro and macro applications) from around the globe exemplify what can be achieved in geographical context. This book is relevant to researchers, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students, and professionals in the areas of quantitative geography, spatial analysis, spatial modelling, social simulation modelling and geographical information sciences.
Tobacco consumption continues to be the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of tobacco products - specifically cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco - to protect public health and reduce tobacco use in the United States. Given the strong social component inherent to tobacco use onset, cessation, and relapse, and given the heterogeneity of those social interactions, agent-based models have the potential to be an essential tool in assessing the effects of policies to control tobacco. Assessing the Use of Agent-Based Models for Tobacco Regulation describes the complex tobacco environment; discusses the usefulness of agent-based models to inform tobacco policy and regulation; presents an evaluation framework for policy-relevant agent-based models; examines the role and type of data needed to develop agent-based models for tobacco regulation; provides an assessment of the agent-based model developed for FDA; and offers strategies for using agent-based models to inform decision making in the future.
In the summer of 1993, twenty-six graduate and postdoctoral stu dents and fourteen lecturers converged on Cornell University for a summer school devoted to structured-population models. This school was one of a series to address concepts cutting across the traditional boundaries separating terrestrial, marine, and freshwa ter ecology. Earlier schools resulted in the books Patch Dynamics (S. A. Levin, T. M. Powell & J. H. Steele, eds., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1993) and Ecological Time Series (T. M. Powell & J. H. Steele, eds., Chapman and Hall, New York, 1995); a book on food webs is in preparation. Models of population structure (differences among individuals due to age, size, developmental stage, spatial location, or genotype) have an important place in studies of all three kinds of ecosystem. In choosing the participants and lecturers for the school, we se lected for diversity-biologists who knew some mathematics and mathematicians who knew some biology, field biologists sobered by encounters with messy data and theoreticians intoxicated by the elegance of the underlying mathematics, people concerned with long-term evolutionary problems and people concerned with the acute crises of conservation biology. For four weeks, these perspec tives swirled in discussions that started in the lecture hall and carried on into the sweltering Ithaca night. Diversity mayor may not increase stability, but it surely makes things interesting.
Geosimulation is hailed as ‘the next big thing’ in geographic modelling for urban studies. This book presents readers with an overview of this new and innovative field by introducing the spatial modelling environment and describing the latest research and development using cellular automata and multi-agent systems. Extensive case studies and working code is available from an associated website which demonstrate the technicalities of geosimulation, and provide readers with the tools to carry out their own modelling and testing. The first book to treat urban geosimulation explicitly, integrating socio-economic and environmental modelling approaches Provides the reader with a sound theoretical base in the science of geosimulation as well as applied material on the construction of geosimulation models Cross-references to an author-maintained associated website with downloadable working code for readers to apply the models presented in the book Visit the Author's Website for further information on Geosimulation, Geographic Automata Systems and Geographic Automata Software http://www.geosimulationbook.com
A comprehensive and hands-on introduction to the core concepts, methods, and applications of agent-based modeling, including detailed NetLogo examples. The advent of widespread fast computing has enabled us to work on more complex problems and to build and analyze more complex models. This book provides an introduction to one of the primary methodologies for research in this new field of knowledge. Agent-based modeling (ABM) offers a new way of doing science: by conducting computer-based experiments. ABM is applicable to complex systems embedded in natural, social, and engineered contexts, across domains that range from engineering to ecology. An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling offers a comprehensive description of the core concepts, methods, and applications of ABM. Its hands-on approach—with hundreds of examples and exercises using NetLogo—enables readers to begin constructing models immediately, regardless of experience or discipline. The book first describes the nature and rationale of agent-based modeling, then presents the methodology for designing and building ABMs, and finally discusses how to utilize ABMs to answer complex questions. Features in each chapter include step-by-step guides to developing models in the main text; text boxes with additional information and concepts; end-of-chapter explorations; and references and lists of relevant reading. There is also an accompanying website with all the models and code.
The 21st century has seen the beginnings of a great restoration effort towards the world’s forests, accompanied by the emergence of an increasing literature on reforestation, regeneration and regrowth of forest cover. Yet to date, there is no volume which synthesises current knowledge on the extent, trends, patterns and drivers of reforestation. This edited volume draws together research from leading researchers to explore reforestation and forest regrowth across the world, from multiple dimensions – including ecosystem services, protected areas, social institutions, economic transitions, remediation of environmental problems, conservation and land abandonment – and at different scales. Detailing the methods and analyses used from across a wide range of disciplines, and incorporating research from North, South and Central America, Africa, Asia and Europe, this groundbreaking book provides a global overview of current trends, explores their underlying causes and proposes future forest trajectories. The first of its kind, the book will provide an invaluable reference for researchers and students involved in interdisciplinary research and working on issues relevant to the biophysical, geographic, socioeconomic and institutional processes associated with reforestation.
Many everyday dilemmas existing in the real world are complex and difficult to solve or fix, ranging from tax evasion to dispatching taxis to scheduling patient visits in hospitals, and much more. Within these complicated problems, however, lies the potential to be simplified or solved by intelligent agents and multi-agent systems. Theoretical and Practical Frameworks for Agent-Based Systems tackles these real problems and many more, bringing the theoretical research of intelligent agents to researchers and practitioners in academia, government, and innumerable industries. Professionals and experts in every field ranging from education to healthcare and beyond will find this reference to be essential in the understanding of agents, and researchers currently working in the field of intelligent agents will benefit from this exciting examination of practical applications.