FOSS Tools for Geospatial and Agent Based Modelling to Evaluate Climate Change in an Agricultural Watershed

Land-use changes are typically modeled using geographic information systems because of the spatial nature of the data. But the complexity of coupled human and natural systems and the fourth dimension involved with change over time and time-series data expose some limitations of GIS tools when used on their own. In this paper we present the application of REPAST, a free and open source geospatial Multi-agent Model (a.k.a. Agent-based Model or ABM) to the dynamic simulation of greenhouse gas (GHG) changes in a sub-watershed in Ontario, Canada with predominantly agricultural land use. The combination of Geospatial analysis and use of an Agent Based Model is a new way to solve complex problems involving multiple decision makers on the landscape. The combination of these modeling approaches helps to address the time dimension in geospatial modeling problems. ABM can model dynamic systems, their evolutionary changes and importantly, can predict options for sustainable system configurations. As a part of this research project, open source tools were developed to integrate ABM and GIS environments, specifically with respect to data transport and coupling of GIS and REPAST tools. In this paper we present scenarios to estimate the GHG emissions in an agricultural watershed, and the FOSS tools we both adopted and have been developing to undertake this project.