A novel approach for multi-stakeholder agricultural land reallocation using agent-based modeling: A case study in Iran

Abstract

Improving the agrarian structure is an overall objective of land consolidation schemes. Unfavorably shaped parcels are optimally rearranged in the land reallocation process and redistributed to pre-determined blocks. In conventional reallocation, farmers' preferences are used to determine the prospective location of the new parcels. The most common conflict that can arise during this process is that demand may be high for some blocks. Resolving these disputes, which deal directly with landowners' rights, can affect the success or failure of land consolidation projects. In this study, a novel approach is presented for land reallocation using agent-based modeling. In this method, landowner agents compete to select blocks that have the most utility for the reallocation of their parcels. The utility of a block for each landowners' parcel is determined based on criteria such as the priority of that block from the landowner's view, the rank of the parcel in that block, the presence of the landowner's fixed facilities in the block, and the neighborhood structure of that block. To improve the model's ability to achieve the optimal result, a planner agent has been defined as responsible for controlling and guiding the process towards optimal land reallocation. The proposed model was applied to an Iranian case study. The results show that the reallocation plan made by the proposed method performs better than the conventional method in terms of the percentage of owners' compliance with their priorities, landowners’ satisfaction, reduction of land fragmentation, and balance of land value.