Synchronizing Histories of Exposure and Demography: The Construction of an Agent-Based Model of the Ecuadorian Amazon Colonization and Exposure to Oil Pollution Hazards

Abstract

Since the s, the northern part of the Amazonian region of Ecuador has been colonized with the support of intensive oil extraction that has opened up roads and supported the settlement of people from Outside Amazonia. These dynamics have caused important forest cuttings but also regular oil leaks and spills, contaminating both soil and water. The PASHAMAMA Model seeks to simulate these dynamics on both environment and population by examining exposure and demography over time thanks to a retro-prospective and spatially explicit agent-based approach. The aim of the present paper is to describe this model, which integrates two dynamics: (a) Oil companies build roads and oil infrastructures and generate spills, inducing leaks and pipeline ruptures a ecting rivers, soils and people. This infrastructure has a probability of leaks, ruptures and other accidents that produce oil pollution a ecting rivers, soils and people. (b) New colonists settled in rural areas mostly as close as possible to roads and producing food and/or cash crops. The innovative aspect of this work is the presentation of a qualitative-quantitative approach explicitly addressed to formalize interdisciplinary modeling when data contexts are almost always incomplete.

Variations in Benthic Macroinvertebrate Communities and Biological Quality in the Aguarico and Coca River Basins in the Ecuadorian Amazon

“…This type of disturbance usually generates inconveniences in the biological communities that inhabit the rivers and therefore can lead to the decrease of biodiversity and abundance. However, the case of oil or mining exploitation can be even more devastating because their impacts persist over time and are more complex and challenging to remove from the environment [10][11][12][13]64]. The impact of the latter type of stressors is very severe and interrupts the dynamics and ecological functions that normally are given by the site-specific conditions, the seasonal fluctuations of the physical-chemical variables, or the temporal patterns of rainfall, which determine the composition of aquatic invertebrate communities.…”

Land Use and Land Cover Changes in the Diversity and Life Zone for Uncontacted Indigenous People: Deforestation Hotspots in the Yasuní Biosphere Reserve, Ecuadorian Amazon

“…In fact, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia are three of the 15 countries that have lost the highest amount of primary forest area between 1990 and 2015 [74]. In the Ecuadorian Amazon Region, the perimeters of protected areas and intangible zones were reported to be more vulnerable to deforestation [56] and problems have been intensified by oil activity [7,[75][76][77], access to road systems [78][79][80], and by conversion to agriculture [81][82][83][84]. Furthermore, these areas experience the dynamics of timber supply from small producers (mestizo settlers and indigenous) to urban centers [85], as Amazonian cities are the first link to final markets through an extended intermediation network [86].…”

Agent-based modeling and simulation in the research of environmental sustainability. A bibliography

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