Environmental sustainability in an agricultural development project: a system dynamics approach

Saysel, Ali Kerem; Barlas, Yaman; Yenigün, Orhan

doi:10.1006/jema.2001.0488

Cited by 193 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…For instance, Saysel et al (2002) used SD approach to analyse potential long-term environmental problems of the South-eastern Anatolian agricultural development project related to water resources, land use, land degradation, and agricultural pollution. For this purpose, a SD simulation model was developed as an experimental platform for policy analysis.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of climate change on food security in Malaysia: economic and policy adjustments for rice industry

Vaghefi

Shamsudin

Radam

et al. 2015

Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of climate change on food security in Malaysia: economic and policy adjustments for rice industry

Vaghefi

Shamsudin

Radam

et al. 2015

Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…For examples of particular applications of fully operational system dynamics simulation models to food system issues, see the following: models of crop growth and management (e.g., Yin and Struik 2010), nutrient dynamics (e.g., Saysel 2014), soil degradation (e.g. Saysel and Barlas 2001), development of environmentally friendly farm systems (e.g., Belcher et al 2004;Shi and Gill 2005), irrigation systems design and management (e.g., Saysel et al 2002), food supply and security (e.g., Conrad 2004;Georgiadis et al 2005), commodity markets (e.g, Nicholson and Stephenson 2014;Nicholson and Kaiser 2008), agricultural development policy (e.g., Kopainsky et al 2015;Züllich et al 2015) and vulnerability analysis of high versus low external input farming systems .…”

Section: Additional Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A system dynamics approach for examining mechanisms and pathways of food supply vulnerability

Stave

Kopainsky

2015

J Environ Stud Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Understanding vulnerabilities in complex and interdependent modern food systems requires a wholesystem perspective. This paper demonstrates how one systems approach, system dynamics, can help conceptualize the mechanisms and pathways by which food systems can be affected by disturbances. We describe the process of creating stock-and-flow maps and causal loop diagrams from the graphical representation of a problem and illustrate their use for making links and feedback among the human health, food, and environmental health sectors visible. These mapping tools help structure thinking about where and how particular systems might be affected by different disturbances and how flows of material and information transmit the effects of disturbances throughout the system. The visual representations as well as the process of creating them can serve different purposes for different stakeholders: developing research questions, identifying policy leverage points, or building collaboration among people in different parts of the system. They can serve as a transition between mental models and formal simulation models, but they also stand on their own to support diagrammatic reasoning: clarifying assumptions, structuring a problem space, or identifying unexpected implications of an unplanned disturbance or an intentional policy intervention. The diagrams included here show that vulnerability of a national food system does not only or automatically result from exogenous shocks that might affect a country. Rather, vulnerability can be either intensified or reduced by the interaction of feedback loops in the food system, and buffered or amplified by the structure of stocks and flows. KeywordsCausal loop diagram; conceptual models; dynamic complexity; modern industrialized food systems; stock-and-flow diagram; systems mapping, structural insights. 2 IntroductionFood supply systems are richly integrated and highly dynamic social-ecological systems in which ecological factors shape the possibilities for food production and social factors govern the goals and operations of actors in the system. In low income countries, food supply systems tend to be relatively simple and closely adapted to local environmental conditions, with a small set of products and few steps between producers and consumers. Consumers are likely to participate in the system and understand how it works. By contrast, the structure and operation of modern industrialized food systems are largely invisible to consumers and policy-makers (Reisch et al. 2013). The chains of production, processing, and distribution activities that generate food supplies are long, highly differentiated, and influenced by an array of environmental, economic, social, cultural and other factors. It is hard to visualize connections in the system and even harder to see how changes in one part of the system affect other parts. Some causal connections in the system are direct and obvious, such as the effect of a drought on crop yield, but some are indirect and opaque, such as the effect of...

show abstract

“…For instance, Ahmad and Billimek (2005) developed a system dynamics model which analyzes policies to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco on population health. Saysel et al (2002) Prats et al (2016) showed how discrete-event models can be used to evaluate public policies in the transmission of tuberculosis in big cities. Eubank (2002) and Rao and Chernyakhovsky (2008) showed with their development of specialized simulation tools that parallel discrete-event simulation was required for large-scale epidemiological models.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approaching parallel computing to simulating population dynamics in demography

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Agent-based modelling and simulation is a promising methodology that can be applied in the study of population dynamics. The main advantage of this technique is that it allows representing the particularities of the individuals that are modeled along with the interactions that take place among them and their environment. Hence, classical numerical simulation approaches are less adequate for reproducing complex dynamics. Nowadays, there is a rise of interest on using distributed computing to perform large-scale simulation of social systems. However, the inherent complexity of this type of applications is challenging and requires the study of possible solutions from the parallel computing perspective (e.g., how to deal with fine grain or irregular workload). In this paper, we discuss the particularities of simulating populating dynamics by using parallel discrete event simulation methodologies. To illustrate our approach, we present a possible solution to make transparent the use of parallel simulation for modeling demographic systems: Yades tool. In Yades, modelers can easily define models that describe different demographic processes with a web user interface and transparently run them on any computer architecture environment thanks to its demographic simulation library and code generator. Therefore, transparency is provided by by two means: the provision of a web user interface where modelers and policy makers can specify their agent-based models with the tools they are familiar with, and the automatic generation of the simulation code that can be executed in any platform (cluster or supercomputer). A study is conducted to evaluate the performance of our solution in a High Performance Computing environment. The main benefit of this outline is that our findings can be generalized to problems with similar characteristics to our demographic simulation model.

show abstract

Environmental sustainability in an agricultural development project: a system dynamics approach

Cited by 193 publications

References 11 publications

Impact of climate change on food security in Malaysia: economic and policy adjustments for rice industry

Impact of climate change on food security in Malaysia: economic and policy adjustments for rice industry

A system dynamics approach for examining mechanisms and pathways of food supply vulnerability

Approaching parallel computing to simulating population dynamics in demography

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About