SimCity meets The Lorax: Simulating Community Forest Management

Student: Maya M. Lapp
Major: Mathematics
Advisor: Dr. Colby Long

Melissa Schultz I.S. Research Prize
in Sustainability and the Environment
1st Place

As the human population grows and climate change accelerates, sustainable resource use is becoming an international concern. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is a method of conserving resources while simultaneously empowering traditionally marginalized communities. Because classical equation-based modeling fails to capture CBNRM complexity, Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) is becoming the primary method of modeling CBRNM. We evaluate an existing CBNRM ABM, modify the ABM to improve the model’s realism, and analyze the new model. While this model remains imperfect, we hope future work will use the model to help us understand CBNRM and apply this understanding to propagate successful CBNRM systems worldwide.

Posted in I.S. Symposium, Independent Study on April 30, 2020.