Abstract
Understanding social-ecological systems (SES) is crucial to supporting the sustainable management of resources. Agent-based modelling is a valuable tool to achieve this because it can represent the behaviour and interactions of organisms, human actors and institutions. Agent-based models (ABMs) have therefore already been widely used to study SES. However, ABMs of SES are by their very nature complex. They are therefore difficult to parameterize and analyse, which can limit their usefulness. It is time to critically reflect upon the current state-of-the-art to evaluate to what degree the potential of agent-based modelling for gaining general insights and supporting specific decision-making has already been utilized. We reviewed achievements and challenges by building upon developments in good modelling practice in the field of ecological modelling with its longer history. As a reference, we used the TRACE framework, which encompasses elements of model development, testing and analysis. We firstly reviewed achievements and challenges with regard to the elements of the TRACE framework addressed in reviews and method papers of social-ecological ABMs. Secondly, in a mini-review, we evaluated whether and to what degree the elements of the TRACE framework were addressed in publications on specific ABMs. We identified substantial gaps with regard to (1) communicating whether the models represented real systems well enough for their intended purpose and (2) analysing the models in a systematic and transparent way so that model output is not only observed but also understood. To fill these gaps, a joint effort of the modelling community is needed to foster the advancement and use of strategies such as participatory approaches, standard protocols for communication, sharing of source code, and tools and strategies for model design and analysis. Throughout our analyses, we provide specific recommendations and references for improving the state-of-the-art. We thereby hope to contribute to the establishment of a new advanced culture of agent-based modelling of SES that will allow us to better develop general theory and practical solutions.
Highlights
We assessed reviews and method papers on social-ecological Agent-based models (ABMs) and extracted information on achievements, open challenges and ways ahead along the following categories suggested by the TRACE framework (Grimm et al ): problem formulation/purpose, model description, data evaluation, conceptual model evaluation, implementation verification, model output verification, model analysis, model output corroboration, iteration of the modelling cycle, and upscaling/transferability (Table )
The list of the reviews and method papers we evaluated is provided in Supplementary Material S
The greatest issue we identified in our mini-review is model analysis
Summary
Social-ecological systems (SES) describe the tight coupling of social and ecological systems: ecosystems are a ected by humans and in turn provide societies with ecosystem services and are the basis of human well-being (Berkes & Folke ; Folke et al ) These interactions are continuously changing due to feedbacks and internal or external factors, and they take place across di erent temporal and spatial scales, making. . SES are composed of individual decision-making agents able to follow their goals (Levin et al ). These are organisms, which range from microbes in the soil to the largest plants and animals, as well as humans and their institutions.
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