DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A SYSTEM DYNAMICS MODEL FOR INVESTIGATING AGRICULTURALLY DRIVEN LAND TRANSFORMATION IN THE NORTH CENTRAL UNITED STATES
Autor: | Melissa R. Wuellner, Luis O Tedeschi, Timothy J. Nichols, Roger N. Gates, Benjamin L. Turner, Barry H. Dunn |
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Rok vydání: | 2016 |
Předmět: |
geography.geographical_feature_category
Land use business.industry Ecology North central Environmental resource management Public policy 04 agricultural and veterinary sciences 010501 environmental sciences Environmental Science (miscellaneous) 01 natural sciences Grassland System dynamics Geography Land transformation Modeling and Simulation 040103 agronomy & agriculture 0401 agriculture forestry and fisheries System dynamics model Land use land-use change and forestry business 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
Zdroj: | Natural Resource Modeling. 29:179-228 |
ISSN: | 0890-8575 |
Popis: | Land transformation from grassland to cropland in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) has become a growing concern among many stakeholders. A growing body of work has sought to determine the amount and rate of land use change with less emphasis on the systemic structures or feedback processes of land use decisions. This paper presents the development of a system dynamics simulation model to integrate ecological, economic, and social components influencing land use decisions, including cattle ranching, cropland production, rural communities, land quality, and public policies. Evaluation indicated that the model satisfactorily predicted historical land, agricultural commodity, and rural community data from the model structure. Reference modes for key variables, including the farmland area, were characterized by a bias correction of 0.999, root mean squared error of prediction of 0.053, R2 of 0.921, and concordance correlation coefficient of 0.0959. The model was robust under extreme and varying sensitivity tests, as well as adequately predicting land use under changing system context. The model's major contributions were the inclusion of decision-making feedbacks from economic and social signals with connectivity to land quality and elasticity values that drive land transformation. Limitations include lack of spatial input and output capabilities useful for visual interfacing. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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