EMS Thematic Issue on Spatial agent-based models for socio-ecological systems

Issue Editors: Dawn C. Parker, Tatiana Filatova, Peter Verburg and Carol Ann Stannard

Co-sponsored by the Aberdeen Global Land Project Nodal Office on Integration and Modelling (http://glp.macaulay.ac.uk/index.php )

Scope and aims

Coupled socio-ecological systems are complex and operate on a variety of scales. Agent-based modeling is widely used to explore how aggregated phenomena emerge from interactions of different actors and processes at the micro level. These cross-scale interactions are especially important in spatial socio-ecological systems where heterogeneous human behavior changes the spatial environment. Agent-based techniques allow modeling of these interactions and feedbacks.

The proposed ‘Thematic Issue’ of the Environmental Modelling & Software journal(current impact Factor of 3.085) will feature applications of agent-based modeling to spatial socio-ecological research questions related to the impacts of heterogeneous human behavior on the environment and ecosystem services. While focused on topic, we anticipate that papers will span a broad range of subject area, case study location, and methodological foci. We invite innovative papers focusing on agent-based modeling, which address the following topics/subject themes:

• Land use and landscape management and impacts on ecosystem services;
• Climate change effects on land use and land management;
• Urban/suburban development and decay and its effects;
• Agricultural land management and natural resource use;
• Development of new ontology-based land-use change modeling tools.
• Development of novel land market models;
• Integration of land market models with ecological landscape processes;
• Development of new data analysis methods to parameterize and analyze the output of agent-based models;
• Innovative new methods for generating abstract landscape configurations to initialize spatial simulation models.

The papers from this theme issue should satisfy the environmental modeling aim of the EMS journal and further expand the scope of socioeconomic modeling represented in EMS. We expect that final papers for the issue will demonstrate modeling techniques that are critically important to the development of robust integrated models using agent-based modeling techniques.

Participation and timeline

Timeline for the TI on ‘Spatial agent-based models for socio-ecological systems’:

• Abstract/intent submission deadline: December 15, 2010
• Invitations to authors to submit full papers: January 15, 2011
• Submission of full papers for review: April 1, 2011

If you are interested in submitting a contribution for the issue, please email your contact details and intended contribution (title, authors, and extended abstract) to [email protected]. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by December 15, 2010.

We will follow a three step review process:

1. Extended abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors and recommendations will be made regarding the scope of the full paper; extended abstracts should be about 1,000 words[1] plus a strong bibliography that indicates the literature that the paper will build upon;
2. Full papers will be sent out for external peer review following Environmental Modelling & Software’s policy that, among other things, requires at least 3 reviewers per paper plus valuable editorial comment;
3. Revised manuscripts will be examined by the Guest Editors and, where necessary, the external reviewers.
   
   [1] Participants of iEMSs’2010 organized sessions do not need to prepare a new 1000 word abstract – please just indicate your interest (send title+authors before December 15, 2010)
   
   The call for papers is repeated here:
   
   http://www.iemss.org/society/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167:spatial-agent-based-models-for-socio-ecological-systems-open&catid=37:journal-special-issue&Itemid=101