Coupled land use and ecological models reveal emergence and feedbacks in socio‐ecological systems

Abstract

Understanding the dynamics of socio-ecological systems is crucial to the development of environmentally sustainable practices. Models of social or ecological sub-systems have greatly enhanced such understanding, but at the risk of obscuring important feedbacks and emergent effects. Integrated modelling approaches have the potential to address this shortcoming by explicitly representing linked socio-ecological dynamics. We developed a socio-ecological system model by coupling an existing agentbased model of land-use dynamics and an individual-based model of demography and dispersal. A hypothetical case-study was established to simulate the interaction of crops and their pollinators in a changing agricultural landscape, initialised from a spatially random distribution of natural assets. The bi-directional coupled model predicted larger changes in crop yield and pollinator populations than a unidirectional uncoupled version. The spatial properties of the system also differed, the coupled version revealing the emergence of spatial land-use clusters that neither supported nor required pollinators. These findings suggest that important dynamics may be missed by uncoupled modelling approaches, but that these can be captured through the combination of currently-available, compatible model frameworks. Such model integrations are required to further fundamental understanding of socio-ecological dynamics and thus improve management of socio-ecological systems.

Modelling how people and nature are intertwined

“…To represent and explore the nature and effects of feedbacks, Synes et al (2019) used and coupled two existing standalone agent-based models to represent the social and ecological system. To represent and explore the nature and effects of feedbacks, Synes et al (2019) used and coupled two existing standalone agent-based models to represent the social and ecological system.…”

“…To represent and explore the nature and effects of feedbacks, Synes et al (2019) used and coupled two existing standalone agent-based models to represent the social and ecological system. Synes et al (2019) coupled the two models so that the output of one became the input to the other in the next time step, thereby allowing for feedbacks between models. Besides an efficient use of research time, another benefit is that repeated testing and applying of a model to other contexts improves model performance over the long run (Schulze et al 2017).…”

“…This is a common social system simplification in models. Multiple simulations, using different parameterisations of the ecological pollinator model, were run by Synes et al (2019) to distil what settings had the largest effect on farmer decision making, crop yield and pollinator populations in their experimental design. Second, temporal and spatial scales between the systems and models need to match.…”

“…Modelling coupled systems requires an understanding of the key system elements and their interactions. To represent and explore the nature and effects of feedbacks, Synes et al (2019) used and coupled two existing standalone agent-based models to represent the social and ecological system. Such sharing and re-using of existing models has many benefits.…”

“…Besides an efficient use of research time, another benefit is that repeated testing and applying of a model to other contexts improves model performance over the long run (Schulze et al 2017). Synes et al (2019) coupled the two models so that the output of one became the input to the other in the next time step, thereby allowing for feedbacks between models. Coupled social-ecological systems can also be modelled by building a single comprehensive model which already includes social and ecological feedbacks (Voinov and Shugart 2013).…”