Exploring agricultural livelihood transitions with an agent-based virtual laboratory: global forces to local decision-making.

ABSTRACT: Rural populations are undergoing rapid changes in both their livelihoods and land uses, with associated impacts on ecosystems, global biogeochemistry, and climate change. A primary challenge is, thus, to explain these shifts in terms of the actors and processes operating within a variety of land systems in order to understand how land users might respond locally to future changes in broader-scale environmental and economic conditions. Using 'induced intensification' theory as a benchmark, we develop a generalized agent-based model to investigate mechanistic explanations of relationships between agricultural intensity and population density, environmental suitability, and market influence. Land-use and livelihood decisions modeled from basic micro-economic theories generated spatial and tem

SUBMITTER: Magliocca NR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3764159 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature