Research

My research focuses on the co-evolution of cognitive, institutional and ecological processes. I am interested how people, their institutional rules and the environment they live in fit together. In the past, present and the future, from local scales to the global scale. I mainly use computational models, like agent-based models, in combination with laboratory experiments, surveys, case study analysis and stakeholder workshops. I worked on quite a number of topics, as you can see in my list of publications. My research is funded by the National Science Foundation. At the moment I work on the following topics:

- Robustness of small-scale irrigation systems

Small-scale irrigation systems are exemplars of self-governance of social-ecological systems. There are many small-scale irrigation systems that have lasted for a long period. However, those robust systems might be fragile to climate change and globalization. The future of small-scale farms are important for the future. Nearly 90% of farms worldwide are less than 2 hectares and support the majority of world’s poorest people. A large proportion of these rely on irrigation which consumes an estimated 70% of global developed water supplies and produces 40% of global agricultural commodities. As part of a large NSF project led by Marty Anderies I perform experiments in the lab and the field (Colombia, Thailand, Nepal, and perhaps India) to understand what attributes of small-scale irrigation systems enables them to better cope with expected changes in their disturbance regimes. Furthermore, I use agent-based models of stylized irrigation systems to address this problem in a more analytical way.

- Catalyzing collective action

From many experimental studies on social dilemmas we find that most people are conditional cooperative. This means that they are willing to cooperate if others do too. Furthermore, we know that cooperation in small groups can easily be derived if we allow participants to communicate. These studies are helpful to understand cooperation in small communities, but how can we apply these insights to large scale populations. In modern times of a globalizing world most people live in urbanized environments and interact with many strangers. Can we enhance collective action in social networks by the use of new social media? In collaboration with Hari Sundaram and Allen Lee we are setting up experiments using mobile apps to test different social influence options to the spread of cooperation in social networks. Besides behavioral experiments we also make models to understand how people make decisions on day-to-day activities which might be influenced by information derived about actions of others.

- Foraging of hunter-gatherers

How did our ancesters organize themselves to collect food, hunt and derive raw materials for tools? Together with Kim Hill, Curtis Murean and various others, I am developing an agent-based model of foraging of hominids during various time periods around 100,000 years ago in a reconstructed landscape of Mossel Bay in South Africa. To inform our assumptions of the foraging behavior we develop a model of the Ache of which we have many direct observations.