Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review

Environmental change can lead to human migration and vice versa. Agent-based models (ABMs) are valuable tools to study these linkages because they can represent individual migration decisions of human actors. Indeed, there is an increasing, yet small, number of ABMs that consider the natural environ...

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Main Authors: Jule Thober, Nina Schwarz, Kathleen Hermans
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Resilience Alliance 2018-06-01
Series:Ecology and Society
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss2/art41/
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author Jule Thober
Nina Schwarz
Kathleen Hermans
author_facet Jule Thober
Nina Schwarz
Kathleen Hermans
author_sort Jule Thober
collection DOAJ
description Environmental change can lead to human migration and vice versa. Agent-based models (ABMs) are valuable tools to study these linkages because they can represent individual migration decisions of human actors. Indeed, there is an increasing, yet small, number of ABMs that consider the natural environment in rural migration processes. Therefore, we reviewed 15 ABMs of environment-migration linkages in rural contexts to synthesize the current state of the art. The reviewed ABMs are mostly applied in tropical contexts, serve a wide range of purposes, and cover diverse scales and types of environmental factors, migration processes, and social-ecological feedbacks. We identified potential for future model development with respect to the (1) complexity of environmental influence factors, (2) representation of relevant migration flows, and (3) type of social-ecological couplings. We found that existing models tend to not include fully integrated feedbacks and provide recommendations for the further development of ABMs to contribute to an understanding of the environment-migration-nexus in the future.
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spelling doaj.art-ffb70185c07940fcad3bcf76fd3187f12022-12-21T21:20:58ZengResilience AllianceEcology and Society1708-30872018-06-012324110.5751/ES-10200-23024110200Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a reviewJule Thober0Nina Schwarz1Kathleen Hermans2Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Leipzig, GermanyHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Leipzig, GermanyHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Leipzig, GermanyEnvironmental change can lead to human migration and vice versa. Agent-based models (ABMs) are valuable tools to study these linkages because they can represent individual migration decisions of human actors. Indeed, there is an increasing, yet small, number of ABMs that consider the natural environment in rural migration processes. Therefore, we reviewed 15 ABMs of environment-migration linkages in rural contexts to synthesize the current state of the art. The reviewed ABMs are mostly applied in tropical contexts, serve a wide range of purposes, and cover diverse scales and types of environmental factors, migration processes, and social-ecological feedbacks. We identified potential for future model development with respect to the (1) complexity of environmental influence factors, (2) representation of relevant migration flows, and (3) type of social-ecological couplings. We found that existing models tend to not include fully integrated feedbacks and provide recommendations for the further development of ABMs to contribute to an understanding of the environment-migration-nexus in the future.http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss2/art41/agent-based modelingenvironmental changefully integrated feedbacksmigrationreviewsocial-ecological system
spellingShingle Jule Thober
Nina Schwarz
Kathleen Hermans
Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
Ecology and Society
agent-based modeling
environmental change
fully integrated feedbacks
migration
review
social-ecological system
title Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
title_full Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
title_fullStr Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
title_full_unstemmed Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
title_short Agent-based modeling of environment-migration linkages: a review
title_sort agent based modeling of environment migration linkages a review
topic agent-based modeling
environmental change
fully integrated feedbacks
migration
review
social-ecological system
url http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol23/iss2/art41/
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AT kathleenhermans agentbasedmodelingofenvironmentmigrationlinkagesareview