Multiactor Modeling of Settling Decisions and Behavior in the San Mariano Watershed, the Philippines: a First Application with the MameLuke Framework

Land-use system dynamics and demographic dynamics are tightly coupled. In environmental science and studies of changes in land use and land cover, an unequivocal relationship is sometimes found between both systems, especially in coarse-scale studies. To obtain a better understanding of these intermingling dynamics, we formulated an agent-based model, the MameLuke settlement model, that used a deductive approach to investigate these relationships. The model was constructed based on ethnographic histories of farm households in San Mariano, the Philippines. The model was calibrated visually. Although this calibration approach proved to be very inefficient, the model itself still outperformed a random model. The model formulation process and the model outcomes were quite extensively discussed with stakeholders, and the conceptual modeling approach and framework proved to be clear and useful tools for local-scale studies dealing with interacting human and biophysical subsystems.