Integrative Modeling of Environmental Change in Agroecosystem

这项授予密歇根大学的奖项支持一位文化人类学家在印度尼西亚巴厘岛研究湿水稻农业灌溉系统的形式特性。主要的重点是了解在获得资源和合作激励方面不可避免的不对称情况下，稳定的合作模式如何在灌溉系统管理中持续存在。这项研究将开发和测试一个与以前的模型不同的模型，通过纳入关于区域生态系统的更现实的信息，并通过扩展社会宇宙以在迭代游戏中包括N个玩家。由此产生的模型应该预测生态过程(灌溉流量、虫害扩散等)的变化。以及各种合作策略或“叛逃”的回报。这些因素结合在一起可以预测合作模式，以应对环境的变化，例如由于采用“绿色革命”农业而导致的害虫增加(因此，要建模的因果关系很复杂，因为人类的决策改变了环境变量，而环境变量又影响了后来的决策)。PI和他的学生将开发和测试该模型，通过三个夏天的实地考察记录下农业和生态变量的测量结果。该项目以一种创新的方式将研究和教学结合在一起，因为学生将积极参与实地工作和模型设计。这项研究很重要，因为这种形式的农业在世界上类似的生态系统中生产大量的食物。增加我们对生产力来源的了解，例如最佳的水管理和害虫管理，以获得更大的收成，这显然是重要的。此外，这类系统的正式模型在规范方面的进展，与当地和地区的具体情况更紧密地联系在一起，同时保留了它们泛化的形式性质，这将扩大我们理解人类在这一领域的行为的一般能力。

This award to the University of Michigan supports the research in Bali, Indonesia, of a cultural anthropologist studying the formal properties of wet-rice agricultural irrigation systems. The main focus is to understand how stable patterns of cooperation persist in the management of irrigation systems, given inescapable asymmetries in access to resources and incentives for cooperation. The research will develop and test a model that differs from previous models by incorporating a more realistic information about the regional ecosystem, and by expanding the social universe to include N players in an iterated game. The resulting model should predict changes in ecological processes (irrigation flows, pest diffusion, etc. ) and the payoffs for various strategies of cooperation or `defection`. These factors in combination can predict the patterns of cooperation in response to changes in the environment, such as increases in pests due to adoption of `Green revolution` agriculture (the causality to be modeled is thus complex with human decisions changing environmental variables which then impact on later decisions). The PI and his students will develop and test the model with measures of agricultural and ecological variables recorded through fieldwork over three summers. The project combines research and teaching in an innovative way since the students will be actively involved in field work and model specification. This research is important because this form of agriculture produces a significant amount of food in similar ecosystems in the world at large. Increases in our understanding of the sources of productivity, such as optimal water management and the management of pests to produce larger harvests is of obvious importance. In addition the advances in specification of formal models of such systems, that are more tightly tied to local and regional specifics while retaining their generalizing formal nature, will expand our general capacity to understand human behavior in this realm.