Agent-based Modeling of Environmental Conflict and Cooperation

This book examines the recent development and use of computer modeling and simulation as an important tool for understanding environmental and resource-based conflicts and for finding pathways for conflict resolution and cooperation. It introduces a new, innovative technique for using agent-based modeling (ABM) as a tool for better understanding environmental conflicts and discusses the application of agent-based modeling for the analysis of multi-agent interaction and conflict and demonstrates the natural interdisciplinary convergence. The authors explore numerous examples of environmental and resource conflicts around the world, as well as cooperative approaches for conflict resolution.

Professor Todd BenDor is the head of the land use and environmental planning specialization in the Department of City and Regional Planning University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research and teaching focus on producing better ways to understand the impacts that human activities and development can have on sensitive ecological and environmental systems. His research uses both qualitative and quantitative techniques to explore improvements in environmental policy, better and easier to use models of urban growth and change, and improvements in environmental conflict resolution techniques. Dr. BenDor is also the Director of Carolina Planning's Ph.D. Program.

Jurgen Scheffran is professor at the Institute of Geography of Universitat Hamburg and head of the Research Group Climate Change and Security (CLISEC) in the Excellence Initiative “Integrated Climate Systems Analysis and Prediction” (CliSAP) at KlimaCampus Hamburg. He is Associate Member of the Center for Science and Peace Research (ZNF) and Faculty Affiliate of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois. After his physics Ph.D. at the University of Marburg he worked in the Interdisciplinary Research Group IANUS and the Mathematics Department of the Technical University of Darmstadt, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and as Visiting Professor at the University of Paris (Sorbonne). Before he came to Hamburg in August 2009, he spent five years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he held positions in the Departments of Political Science and Atmospheric Sciences, at ACDIS and the Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research (CABER).