Funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering

Joy Singarayer and Nick Branch, University of Reading

 

Despite steady economic growth nationally over the last 15 years a high percentage of the rural population in Peru (44% in 2017) continue to live in chronic poverty. The agricultural system in these rural areas has its foundations in pre-Colonial social and cultural development, and the transformation of the landscape and environment through sophisticated, highly organised engineering. Future water-use availability and agricultural productivity will result from a complex interplay between climate/environmental change and the collective behaviour of farming communities in response to various environmental and socioeconomic factors. 

​

As part of this 3-year project, in order to find sustainable management practices that enhance climate resilience in conjunction with positive economic outcomes for farmers, we will be developing an agent-based model (ABM) to aid decision-makers to better understand and debate future adaptive management strategies. High-resolution future climate projections will be used to drive a model that will couple ecohydrology to an ABM of the farming community for each study region. Dynamic agent behaviour will be informed by outputs from the agro-economic research with Campesino farmers and NGOs. Interactions between agent farmers will influence the knowledge and uptake of agricultural techniques, crop-type, and expansion/abandonment of farms. With this framework users of the model will be able to investigate strategies for optimal outcomes of the complex human-environmental system.

​