Manson Steven M, Evans Tom
Department of Geography, University of Minnesota, 414 Social Sciences, 267 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Dec 26;104(52):20678-83. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0705802104. Epub 2007 Dec 19.
We combine mixed-methods research with integrated agent-based modeling to understand land change and economic decision making in the United States and Mexico. This work demonstrates how sustainability science benefits from combining integrated agent-based modeling (which blends methods from the social, ecological, and information sciences) and mixed-methods research (which interleaves multiple approaches ranging from qualitative field research to quantitative laboratory experiments and interpretation of remotely sensed imagery). We test assumptions of utility-maximizing behavior in household-level landscape management in south-central Indiana, linking parcel data, land cover derived from aerial photography, and findings from laboratory experiments. We examine the role of uncertainty and limited information, preferences, differential demographic attributes, and past experience and future time horizons. We also use evolutionary programming to represent bounded rationality in agriculturalist households in the southern Yucatán of Mexico. This approach captures realistic rule of thumb strategies while identifying social and environmental factors in a manner similar to econometric models. These case studies highlight the role of computational models of decision making in land-change contexts and advance our understanding of decision making in general.
我们将混合方法研究与基于主体的综合建模相结合，以了解美国和墨西哥的土地变化及经济决策。这项工作展示了可持续性科学如何从结合基于主体的综合建模（融合了社会科学、生态科学和信息科学的方法）和混合方法研究（交织了从定性实地研究到定量实验室实验以及遥感影像解读等多种方法）中受益。我们在印第安纳州中南部家庭层面的景观管理中检验效用最大化行为的假设，将地块数据、航空摄影得出的土地覆盖情况以及实验室实验结果联系起来。我们研究不确定性和有限信息、偏好、不同的人口统计学属性、过去的经验以及未来的时间跨度所起的作用。我们还运用进化规划来体现墨西哥尤卡坦半岛南部农民家庭的有限理性。这种方法在识别社会和环境因素时，以类似于计量经济学模型的方式捕捉现实的经验法则策略。这些案例研究凸显了决策计算模型在土地变化背景中的作用，并总体上推进了我们对决策的理解。
