Modelling farmer decision making for natural resource management outcomes

This paper presents a conceptual modelling and simulation methodology that incorporates dryland farmer decision making into regional- and landscape-level natural resource management (NRM) planning. Decision making for many NRM on ground actions is made at the farm level so it makes sense to incorporate farmer behaviour into regional planning for meeting regional environmental objectives. Our model applies multi-attribute farmer utility functions within an agent-based simulation environment to model temporal change in land use and landscapes resulting from farmer implementation of on ground NRM actions. Farmer decision profiles are characterized using a survey of over 500 farmers. Landscape futures can also be assessed by modelling farmer responses to changes in both external drivers and policies. The dominant external drivers of land use change are related to climate and societal change, commodity prices, and technological advances. These drivers, in combination with natural resource management policy, influence farmer decision making and willingness to undertake NRM actions, which in turn determines whether or not specific regional NRM targets will be achieved under various future scenarios and provides an assessment of the biophysical, economic and social impacts of NRM actions at the catchment scale.