Keywords
feedback mechanisms, land use modelling, review, urban and rural land systems
Start Date
1-7-2010 12:00 AM
Abstract
The dynamics of socio-environmental systems are driven by exogenous forcesand by the interaction of endogenous system components, both within the social and environmentalrealms, as well as between them. In recent years, the number of models andmodelling frameworks explicitly representing feedbacks has increased, especially for modelsof land use systems. Land use changes are on the one hand caused by a complex interactionof human and/or institutional land use demands and the environment, which supportsor limits human use in several aspects. On the other hand, land use changes and theireffects at least partly influence the respective driving forces and future land-use decisions,e.g. by affecting the productivity of agricultural land, in- or decreasing the quality of life in(residential) urban areas, increasing accessibility and thereby facilitating the economicdevelopment of areas and so forth. In this paper we address the complexity of socioenvironmentalsystems via analysing and reviewing the feedbacks implemented in currentsimulation models, with a focus on feedback loops between the social and the environmentalcomponent. We developed an analysis framework distinguishing several categories ofinformation exchange between model components. Results indicate that feedbacks from‘population’ simulated e.g. as households or average land managers were well represented,whereas institutions or technical changes were rarely addressed. From the environmentcomponent mostly the performance of crops or density of population were reported, whereasother environmental changes e.g. concerning soil, weather or water dynamics or structuralchanges in cities were addressed less frequently or not at all. We conclude that theland-use modelling community started to address system complexity via implementingfeedback loops, leaving much room for increasing the realism of information exchangebetween representations of the social and the environment components.
Feedbacks in socio-environmental land systems
The dynamics of socio-environmental systems are driven by exogenous forcesand by the interaction of endogenous system components, both within the social and environmentalrealms, as well as between them. In recent years, the number of models andmodelling frameworks explicitly representing feedbacks has increased, especially for modelsof land use systems. Land use changes are on the one hand caused by a complex interactionof human and/or institutional land use demands and the environment, which supportsor limits human use in several aspects. On the other hand, land use changes and theireffects at least partly influence the respective driving forces and future land-use decisions,e.g. by affecting the productivity of agricultural land, in- or decreasing the quality of life in(residential) urban areas, increasing accessibility and thereby facilitating the economicdevelopment of areas and so forth. In this paper we address the complexity of socioenvironmentalsystems via analysing and reviewing the feedbacks implemented in currentsimulation models, with a focus on feedback loops between the social and the environmentalcomponent. We developed an analysis framework distinguishing several categories ofinformation exchange between model components. Results indicate that feedbacks from‘population’ simulated e.g. as households or average land managers were well represented,whereas institutions or technical changes were rarely addressed. From the environmentcomponent mostly the performance of crops or density of population were reported, whereasother environmental changes e.g. concerning soil, weather or water dynamics or structuralchanges in cities were addressed less frequently or not at all. We conclude that theland-use modelling community started to address system complexity via implementingfeedback loops, leaving much room for increasing the realism of information exchangebetween representations of the social and the environment components.
