Examples from Agent-Based Modeling of Environmental Forcings on Mobility

Agent-based modeling – in which system-level outcomes emerge from interactions among individuals and their environment – can provide unique insights in the study of livelihoods decision-making and adaptation responses to climate hazards and shocks.  However, finding empirical support for the underlying behavioral assumptions in ABM can be a challenge.  Data on decision-making is typically expensive to collect, or in some cases simply not possible – it can be hard to report on things (such as sea level rise, or other compound floods) that one hasn’t experienced yet.  In this talk I present results and work in progress on a stakeholder-engaged approach to modeling environmental forcings on migration (applications to Bangladesh and Senegal), with a focus on data gaps in adaptation modeling and the frontier of opportunities (expert elicitation, through participatory methods and high-frequency data collection) to resolve parts of them.

Bio: Andrew Reid Bell is Assistant Professor of Earth & Environment at Boston University, with a research program focused on identifying pro-poor and pro-environment responses to human-environment dilemmas.  His work draws on agent-based modeling tools, informed by field and behavioral experiments.  He earned a PhD in Natural Resource Management from the University of Michigan in 2010, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and positions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and New York University before joining Boston University in 2021.

The David Bradford Energy and Environmental Policy Seminar Series is coordinated by the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE), and co-sponsored by the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI).

This in-person event is open to the Princeton University community. Members of the public may watch the seminar over livestream at http://mediacentrallive.princeton.edu/