Journal club: Human decisions in agent-based models of land use change
Group members:
Participants of the journal club are from three different departments: Computational Landscape Ecology, Ecological Modelling and Economics. Clicking on the pictures in the grid below brings you to the individual agent`s pages.

About us:
We are a group of scientists working in the field of agent-based modeling. We started to meet in 2010 to read and discuss literature that deals with agent-based models of land use change. Our main goal is to learn how to better represent, describe and model the human decision in the context of land use change. Our discussions have lead to further activities like international workshops or publications.
Publications:
- The ODD+D offers an extension to the ODD (Overview, Design, Detail) protocol that guides authors of agent-based models in their model description. It is adapted to the description of human decisions in agent based models and can be found here:
- Müller, B., Bohn, F., Dreßler, G., Groeneveld, J., Klassert, C., Martin, R., Schlüter, M., Schulze, J., Weise, H., Schwarz, N. (2013):
Describing human decisions in agent-based models - ODD+D, an extension of the ODD protocol
Environ. Modell. Softw. 48 , 37 - 48 10.1016/j.envsoft.2013.06.003
- One major criticism with respect to the method of agent-based modelling is that the models are often inadequately described. What constitutes a good ABM description? You can read our opinion together with that of various colleagues from the field of agent based modelling in this publication:
- Groeneveld, J., Müller, B., Angermüller, F., Drees, R., Dreßler, G., Klassert, C., Schulze, J., Weise, H., Schwarz, N. (2012):
Good modelling practice: Expanding the ODD model description protocol for socioenvironmental agent based models
In: Seppelt, R., Voinov, A.A., Lange, S., Bankamp, D. (eds.)
IEMSs 2012 - Managing resources of a limited planet: Pathways and visions under uncertainty. Proceedings of the 6th biannial meeting of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, Leipzig, Germany, July 1-5, 2012
p. 2480 - 2484
Workshops:
- Human decisions in agent-based models (ABM) for natural resource use - need for protocols at The sixth biannial meeting of the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society, Leipzig, Germany, July 1 - 5, 2012
- Human decisions in ABM for land use - how to implement and how to document. Roundtable together with Sun Zhanli (IAMO) at The 2nd Global Land Project Open Science Meeting, Berlin, Germany, March 19-21, 2014
- Project workshop: SESYNC-UFZ-IDiv funded cooperation project: Synthesis of micro-scale human decision making to mitigate risks to ecosystem services, Leipzig, Germany, May 19 - 23, 2014
Cooperations:
- Dawn Parker, Waterloo Institute for Complexity & Innovation, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
- Gary Polhill, The James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, UK
- Zhanli "Jerry" Sun, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies - IAMO, Halle, Germany