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Agent-Based Case Studies for Understanding
of Social-Ecological Systems: Cooperation
on Irrigation in Bali
Nanda Wijermans and Maja Schlüter
Stockholm Resilience Centre, University of Stockholm, Sweden
{nanda.wijermans,maja.schlueter}@stockholmresilience.su.se
Abstract.
This paper describes the design phase of an ABM case study of Bali
irrigation. The aim of the model is to explain the differences in the ability of
rice paddy farmers to collectively adapt through cooperation. The model should
allow exploring factors affecting self organisation within and between rice pad-
dy farmer communities. The exercise of the ABM case study aims to move
abstract models (theory) closer to real world phenomena, which requires con-
textualisation. This paper focuses on the first steps in model contextualisation:
model selection and specification for the Bali irrigation case.
Keywords:
ABM case studies, Bali Irrigation, cooperation, social-ecological
systems, social dilemmas.
1
Introduction
We live in a complex world, where our actions affect and are affected by nature and
other humans. Social-ecological systems (SES) research focuses on problems that
involve both humans and the environment, which are tightly interconnected and in
continuous interaction. For example, questions that address the impact of climate
change, the spread of infectious diseases or the sustainable management of natural
resources. One major challenge of SES research, with respect to sustainable use of
natural resources, is to understand and manage social dilemmas, i.e., situations in
which resources are shared and there is a need to individually restrain resource out-
take to avoid collective over-exploitation of a common pool resource
1
. These social
dilemmas can have tremendous impact on a large scale, such as, reduced water avail-
ability for food production, collapsing fish stocks or the inability to deal with climate
1
Common pool resources are a type of resource where taking out resources (harvesting) by
one user reduces the availability from a pool that is potentially available to others, i.e.
subtractability, and it is difficult to exclude anybody from taking out resources, i.e.,
non-excludible [1].
