Modélographie multi-agents de la simulation des interactions sociétés-environnement et de l’émergence des villes

Abstract

The complex system paradigm and agent-based modeling are seeing increased use as new approaches in social sciences. These methods and tools bring new perspectives on known facts but also allow us to test new hypotheses on social dynamics. Their use is extremely interesting in the study of how environment and society interact, and especially in the study of the emergence of urbanization. Six models forming a ’modelography’ are considered in this paper: Sugarscape, by J.M. Epstein and R. Axtell; Anasazi, from The Artificial Anasazi Project; The Village Project, from the Village Ecodynamics project; ENKIMDU, from the MASS project; SimPop, from the Géographie-cités Laboratory; and a model of urban center emergence, by A. Ourednik and P. Dessemontet. A new method to describe and compare these models is used. It will help identify the contributions or the possible improvements of the existing modeling techniques developed to better understand this complex problem.

Keywords

• agent-based model
• environment and society interaction
• emergence of cities