Evoland – An Alternative Futuring Tool

1. Evoland – An Alternative Futuring Tool John Bolte Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering Oregon State University Corvallis, OR USA

2. Alternative Futuring • Examine multiple sets of trends and assumptions about future conditions, generally using one of more models of change • Generally consists of a synthesis of these assumptions, trends into trajectories of future change • Generally involves significant stakeholder interactions to define constraints, trajectories, drivers • May involve the use of simulation, decision support tools

3. A Alternative Futuring Tool - Evoland Evoland (Evolving Landscapes) is a tool for conducting alternative futures analyses using: • A spatially explicit, GIS-based approach to landscape representation • Captures human decision-making through explicit representation of land use/land management policies and actor-based (multiagent-based) approach to policy selection • Incorporates autonomous landscape process models for representing non human (natural) landscape change

4. Evoland – Triad of Relationships Actors Policies Economics Intentions Values and Behaviors Ecosystem Health Social (Programmatic) Provide a common frame of reference for actors, policies and landscape production Landscapes Metrics of Production

5. Evoland – General Structure Actors: Decisionmakers making landscape change by selecting policies responsive to their objectives Landscape Evaluators: Generate landscape metrics reflecting scarcity Landscape Feedback Actions Landscape: Spatial Container in which land use changes are depicted Policy Selection Autonomous Change Processes: Models of nonhuman change Policies: Fundamental Descriptors of constraints and actions defining land use management decisionmaking

6. Evoland Framework Data Sources Evaluative Models Fish Abundance/Distributions Parcels (IDU’s) Floodplain Habitat Policy Set(s) Small-Stream Macroinvertabrates Agent Descriptors Upslope Wildlife Habitat Autonomous Process Models Evoland Parcel Market Values Population Growth Agricultural Land Supply Urban Expansion Forest Land Supply Vegetative Succession Residential Land Supply Land Value Conservation Set-Asides

7. Policies in Evoland • Describe actions available to actors • Primary Characteristics: • Applicable Site Attributes (Spatial Query) • Effectiveness of the Policy (determined by evaluative models) • Outcomes (possible multiple) associated with the selection and application of the Policy • Policies are a fundamental unit of computation in Evoland • Example: [Purchase conservations easement to allow revegetation of degraded riparian areas] in [areas with no built structures and high channel migration capacity] when [native fish habitat becomes scarce]

8. Actors in Evoland • Fundamentally, actors have decision-making authority over their portion of the landscape • Actors have Behaviors that relate to their values (e.g. ecosystem health, economics) • Can organize into higher level Associations to influence policy generation, policy selection • Based on spatial proximity • Based on common behaviors • For WRB project, Actors are initialized from Census data, voting behavior analysis