Agent-based and Integrated Assessment Modelling for Incorporating Social Dynamics in the Management of the Meuse in the Dutch Province of Limburg

The European project FIRMA (Freshwater Integrated Resource Management with Agents) aims to improve water resource planning by combining agent-based modelling and integrated assessment to describe physical, hydrological, social and economic aspects of water resource management in an integrated way. This paper describes an approach that couples an agent-based model with an integrated assessment model as a conceptual framework. The aspired outcome of the model is to highlight the consequences of agent activities on each other as well as on the environment. The aim is to provide a DSS for decision makers in a water management situation. The case study presented here examines the river Meuse in the Dutch province of Limburg. An integrated assessment model was developed as a local example of a water planning initiative the Maaswerken project in order to assess the impacts of river engineering measures on selected river functions (safety, nature development and gravel extraction). An agent-based model represents the negotiations, decisions, and responses of stakeholders that may influence the selection of river engineering measures. The agent architecture is based upon the principles of cognitive agents. Information required to design the symbolic representation of an agent is gathered with the help of stakeholder participation. An innovative approach of the FIRMA project is to incorporate stakeholder participation for model development on the one hand, and, on the other, to raise the interest of stakeholders and to increase their confidence in the model results. In a second phase of the participatory process, stakeholders will be actively involved in the validation of the agent-based model.