Displaying 10 of 21 results for "Nathalie Corson" clear search
Modeling land use change from smallholder agricultural intensification
Agricultural expansion in the rural tropics brings much needed economic and social development in developing countries. On the other hand, agricultural development can result in the clearing of biologically-diverse and carbon-rich forests. To achieve both development and conservation objectives, many government policies and initiatives support agricultural intensification, especially in smallholdings, as a way to increase crop production without expanding farmlands. However, little is understood regarding how different smallholders might respond to such investments for yield intensification. It is also unclear what factors might influence a smallholder’s land-use decision making process. In this proposed research, I will use a bottom-up approach to evaluate whether investments in yield intensification for smallholder farmers would really translate to sustainable land use in Indonesia. I will do so by combining socioeconomic and GIS data in an agent-based model (Land-Use Dynamic Simulator multi-agent simulation model). The outputs of my research will provide decision makers with new and contextualized information to assist them in designing agricultural policies to suit varying socioeconomic, geographic and environmental contexts.
The goal of my research program is to improve our understanding about highly integrated natural and human processes. Within the context of Land-System Science, I seek to understand how natural and human systems interact through feedback mechanisms and affect land management choices among humans and ecosystem (e.g., carbon storage) and biophysical processes (e.g., erosion) in natural systems. One component of this program involves finding novel methods for data collection (e.g., unmanned aerial vehicles) that can be used to calibrate and validate models of natural systems at the resolution of decision makers. Another component of this program involves the design and construction of agent-based models to formalize our understanding of human decisions and their interaction with their environment in computer code. The most exciting, and remaining part, is coupling these two components together so that we may not only quantify the impact of representing their coupling, but more importantly to assess the impacts of changing climate, technology, and policy on human well-being, patterns of land use and land management, and ecological and biophysical aspects of our environment.
To achieve this overarching goal, my students and I conduct fieldwork that involves the use of state-of-the-art unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in combination with ground-based light detection and ranging (LiDAR) equipment, RTK global positioning system (GPS) receivers, weather and soil sensors, and a host of different types of manual measurements. We bring these data together to make methodological advancements and benchmark novel equipment to justify its use in the calibration and validation of models of natural and human processes. By conducting fieldwork at high spatial resolutions (e.g., parcel level) we are able to couple our representation of natural system processes at the scale at which human actors make decisions and improve our understanding about how they react to changes and affect our environment.
land use; land management; agricultural systems; ecosystem function; carbon; remote sensing; field measurements; unmanned aerial vehicle; human decision-making; erosion, hydrological, and agent-based modelling
I study human dimensions of natural resource management and resource use by under-represented populations—often in developing nations—to enhance our understanding of conflicts involving land use, natural resources, and conservation from an interdisciplinary, systematic lens. My research spans subjects such as common pool resource management and policy, decentralization, and land use/land cover change drivers and trends relating to population rise and environmental change.
I discovered at the same time Agent-Based Modeling method and Companion Modelling approach during my master degrees (engeenering and artificial intelligence and decision) internship at CIRAD in 2005 and 2006 where I had the opportunity to participate as a modeller to a ComMod process (Farolfi et al., 2010).
Then, during my PhD in computer Science applied to Modeling and Simulation, I learned the Theory of Modeling and Simulation and the Discrete EVent System specification formalism and proposed a conceptual, formal and operational framework to evaluate simulation models based on the way models are used instead of their ability to reproduce the target system behavior (Bonté et al., 2012). Applied to the surveillance of Epidemics, this work was rather theoritical but very educative and structuring to formulate my further models and research questions about modeling and simulation.
From 2011 to 2013, I worked on viability theory applied to forest management at the Compex System Lab of Irstea (now Inrae) and learned about the interest of agregated models for analytical results (Bonté et al, 2012; Mathias et al, 2015).
Since 2013, I’m working for Inrae at the joint The Joint Research Unit “Water Management, Actors, Territories” (UMR G-EAU) where I’m involved in highly engaging interdisciplinary researches such as:
- The Multi-plateforme International Summer School about Agent Based Modelling and Simulation (MISSABMS)
- The development of the CORMAS (COmmon Pool Resources Multi-Agents Systems) agent-based modeling and simulation Platform (Bommel et al., 2019)
- Impacts of the adaptation to global changes using computerised serious games (Bonté et al., 2019; Bonté et al. , 2021)
- The use of experimentation to study social behaviors (Bonté et al. 2019b)
- The impact of information systems in SES trajectories (Paget et al., 2019a)
- Adaptation and transformations of traditional water management and infrastructures systems (Idda et al., 2017)
- Situational multi-agent approaches for collective irrigation (Richard et al., 2019)
- Combining psyhcological and economical experiments to study relations bewteen common pool resources situations, economical behaviours and psychological attitudes.
My research is about modelling and simulation of complex systems. My work is to use, and participate to the development of, integrative tools at the formal level (based on the Discrete EVent System Specification (DEVS) formalism), at the conceptual level (based on integrative paradigms of different forms such as Multi-Agents Systems paradigm (MAS), SES framework or viability theory), and at the level of the use of modelling and simulation for collective decision making (based on the Companion Modelling approach (ComMod)). Since 2013 and my integration in the G-EAU mixt research units, my object of studies were focused on multi-scale social and ecological systems, applied to water resource management and adaptation of territories to global change and I added experimentation to my research interest, developping methods combining agent-based model and human subjects actions.
Biographical Sketch
(a) Professional Preparation
Brigham Young University Statistics & Computer Science B.S. 1986
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Biostatistics M.S. 1988
North Carolina State University Biomathematics & Entomology Ph.D. 1997
(b) Appointments
Associate Professor 2006-current: Brigham Young University Department of Biology
Assistant Professor 2000-2006: Brigham Young University Department of Integrative Biology
Research Scientist 1997-1999: Agriculture Research Service-USDA Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center.
(c) Publications
i. Five most relevant publications
Ahmadou H. Dicko, Renaud Lancelot, Momar Talla Seck, Laure Guerrini, Baba Sall, Mbargou Low, Marc J.B. Vreysen, Thierry Lefrançois, Fonta Williams, Steven L. Peck, and Jérémy Bouyer. 2014. Using species distribution models to optimize vector control: the tsetse eradication campaign in Senegal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 11 (28) : 10149-10154
Peck, S. L. 2014. Perspectives on why digital ecologies matter: Combining population genetics and ecologically informed agent-based models with GIS for managing dipteran livestock pests. Acta Tropica. 138S (2014) S22–S25
Peck, S. L. and Jérémy Bouyer. 2012. Mathematical modeling, spatial complexity, and critical decisions in tsetse control. Journal of Economic Entomology 105(5): 1477—1486.
Peck, S. L. 2012. Networks of habitat patches in tsetse fly control: implications of metapopulation structure on assessing local extinction probabilities. Ecological Modelling 246: 99–102.
Peck, S. L. 2012. Agent-based models as fictive instantiations of ecological processes.” Philosophy & Theory in Biology. Vol. 4.e303 (2012): 12
ii. Five other publications of note
Peck, S. L. 2008. The Hermeneutics of Ecological Simulation. Biology and Philosophy 23:383-402.
K.M. Froerer, S.L. Peck, G.T. McQuate, R.I. Vargas, E.B. Jang, and D.O. McInnis. 2010. Long distance movement of Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Puna, Hawaii: How far can they go? American Entomologist 56(2): 88-94
Peck, S. L. 2004. Simulation as experiment: a philosophical reassessment for biological modeling. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19 (10): 530 534
Storer N.P., S. L. Peck, F. Gould, J. W. Van Duyn and G. G. Kennedy. 2003 Sensitivity analysis of a spatially-explicit stochastic simulation model of the evolution of resistance in Helicoverpa zea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) to Bt transgenic corn and cotton. Economic Entomology. 96(1): 173-187
Peck, S. L., F. Gould, and S. Ellner. 1999. The spread of resistance in spatially extended systems of transgenic cotton: Implications for the management of Heliothis virescens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Economic Entomology 92:1-16.
Displaying 10 of 21 results for "Nathalie Corson" clear search