Social influence and water conservation: an agent-based approach

effective at achieving their goals—in fact, some have the opposite effect. Word-of-mouth communication—the informal channels of daily interactions among friends, relatives, coworkers, neighbors, and acquaintances—plays a much more significant role in how consumer behavior is shaped, fashion is introduced, and product reputation is built. Macrolevel simulations that include this kind of social parameter are usually limited to generalized, often sim-plistic assumptions. In an effort to represent the phenomenon in a semantically coherent way and model it more realistically, we developed an influence-diffusion mechanism that follows agent-based social simulation primitives. The model is realized as a multiagent software platform, which we call Dawn (distributed agents for water simulation). Dawn consists of a community of interacting, autonomous, consumer agents (CAs). In a virtual social network environment, these agents simulate social interactions, and through the influence-diffusion mechanism, they persuade each other and ultimately make decisions. In generic simulation environments, researchers use the notion of an agent to represent physical drivers, system stakeholders, natural entities, public organizations, and several other diverse entities. Agent-based social simulation applies to several different domains (including ecology, social sciences, robotics, environmental assessment , and computer games), either for exploring methods to achieve a common goal or for explaining common behavior. 1 In this respect, agent-based social simulation seems suitable for assembling microlevel experiments that explore the way consuming habits form as a result of ad campaigns. Among the microlevel models developed for simulating interpersonal communication and opinion dynamics are the Sznajd-Weron models for price formation and opinion evolution. 2 These models simulate social responsiveness to mass-mediasignals and the effects of word-of-mouth communication in competitive environments such as presidential elections, duopoly or oligopoly markets, and new product penetration. The urban water supply-demand cycle reflects an unusual monopoly market of a natural resource whose value includes both an economical and an environmental dimension. Indeed, an individ-ual's water consumption isn't related solely to price—it also has connections to his or her generic behavior related to environmental awareness and social responsibility. Consequently, even if several people share similar opinions about environmental values, they won't behave in the same way or willingly modify their water consumption habits uniformly. For such a peculiar market, our agent-based social simulation model helps explore the effects of a public conservation campaign on residential water demands. The simplest influence model for simulating the public's response to mass-media messages is the stimulus-response model, which suggests that mass media can influence …