Checking for missing content type metadata ...

Checking for non-preferred file/folder path names (may take a long time depending on the number of files/folders) ...

Laboratory-Informed Agent-Based Modeling of Filter-Strip Adoption and Watershed Phosphorus Outcomes


Authors:
Owners: This resource does not have an owner who is an active HydroShare user. Contact CUAHSI (help@cuahsi.org) for information on this resource.
Type: Resource
Storage: The size of this resource is 2.0 MB
Created: Jan 20, 2026 at 10:22 p.m. (UTC)
Last updated: Sep 18, 2026 at 12:22 p.m. (UTC)
Citation: See how to cite this resource
Sharing Status: Public
Views: 930
Downloads: 55
+1 Votes: Be the first one to 
 this.
Comments: No comments (yet)

Abstract

Non-point source pollution from crop production threatens water quality, yet linking heterogeneous practice adoption to watershed outcomes remains challenging where farmer decision data are limited. We couple a laboratory-informed agent-based model (ABM) with a semi-empirical phosphorus-load model for Delaware’s Murderkill River watershed. A reduced-form XGBoost classifier is fitted to incentivized binary abatement choices from a context-free experiment with undergraduate participants. These choices and experimental production capacities are mapped conceptually to filter-strip adoption and corn-area classes for 165 simulated farmer agents. Six fixed policy and information-treatment combinations are evaluated under prescribed crop pattern change and fertilizer change scenarios. In the base simulations, the ambient policy without information or with group-level information produced full predicted adoption and reached the 50% total phosphorus reduction target soonest among the six combinations within each scenario. Despite identical adoption levels, the scenario-specific 50% reduction thresholds were reached after 35 years under crop conversion and 9 years under fertilizer reduction. Under the ambient policy, agents with medium and large corn areas were predicted to adopt with every information treatment, whereas agents with small corn areas were predicted not to adopt when individual-level information was provided; this pattern varied across refits and a location-inclusion check. These results illustrate how the environmental consequences of adoption depend on prescribed management and load assumptions. The conditional predictions require independent behavioral and environmental evaluation. By explicitly linking experimental choices, heterogeneous adoption predictions, and phosphorus trajectories, the framework provides a foundation for integrating behavioral evidence into watershed scenario analysis.

Subject Keywords

Coverage

Spatial

Coordinate System/Geographic Projection:
WGS 84 EPSG:4326
Coordinate Units:
Decimal degrees
Place/Area Name:
Murderkill River watershed
North Latitude
39.0837°
East Longitude
-75.3421°
South Latitude
38.8880°
West Longitude
-75.6621°

Content

Credits

Funding Agencies

This resource was created using funding from the following sources:
Agency Name Award Title Award Number
U.S. National Science Foundation EPSCoR 1757353

How to Cite

Malakpour-Estalaki, S., Hu, Y., Xie, L., Messer, K. D., Palm-Forster, L. H., Michael, H. A. (2026). Laboratory-Informed Agent-Based Modeling of Filter-Strip Adoption and Watershed Phosphorus Outcomes, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/1563918bc53c4d2bb8f18e4e14bfbfd9

This resource is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
CC-BY

Comments

There are currently no comments

New Comment

required