Abstract

REBAUDO, François  and  DANGLES, Olivier. Methods for building scenarios of wetland dynamics facing global changes: a social-ecological modeling approach. Ecología en Bolivia [online]. 2014, vol.49, n.3, pp.141-153. ISSN 1605-2528.

Wetlands are socio-ecological systems where the physical, ecological and sociological aspects are intrinsically related. These relations are critical to understand their dynamic face of global change. One way to represent the complexity of the wetlands is to represent them from the perspective of the core components and propose a natural description of the system where the knowledge of the different scientific disciplines can be integrated and connected. The agent-based modeling approach allows this perspective, and provides a tool to consider both the spatial and temporal dynamics. Using models is justified when experiments cannot be performed for ethical or logistical reasons, such as in socio-ecological systems. Models describing the dynamics of the wetlands have to take into account not only their different components, but also the interactions between them, at the interface between scientific disciplines and knowledge. Thus the characteristics of the wetlands as complex systems demonstrate non-linearity of the dynamics, thresholds, retroactive loops, and heterogeneity. This article describes the use of agent-based models for the specific case of the wetlands of the Cordillera Real in Bolivia facing climate change. It also proposes methods for communicating the model in order to get a shared representation of the system, but also to be useful for a broad audience.

Keywords : Global change; Models; Multi-agent; Social-ecological system; Wetlands.

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