Mapping Survey Data into Agents’ Behavioral Rules for ABMs: Motivation and Challenges

Modeling land use change inevitably involves modeling of an individual behavior of land users in addition to modeling of spatial environment. The processes in the latter usually follow some physical laws. However, it is less straightforward for a modeler how to describe the process of human decision making (Berger and Schreinemachers 2006; Brown and Robinson 2006; Stites 2006). As it is observed by ABM-modelers, it is relatively easy to model the mechanical part of an ABM such as spatial environment, because their dynamics is described by a set of straightforward deterministic rules (with some uncertainty intervals sometimes). In contrast, for human-beings it is not possible to say exactly how they (i.e., we) make decisions. Theoretically, land use behavior is well formalized in economics. Farmers’ (von Thünen 1826 (reprinted in 1966)), households’ (Alonso 1964; Strazsheim 1987) and firms’ (Fujita and Thisse 2002) decision making with respect to land is fully based on the assumption of a rational maximization, equilibrium, and representative behavior.