Agent-based modeling – in which system-level outcomes emerge from interactions among individuals and their environment – can provide unique insights in the study of livelihoods decision-making and adaptation responses to climate hazards and shocks.  However, finding empirical support for the underlying behavioral assumptions in ABM can be a challenge.  Data on decision-making is typically expensive to collect, or in some cases simply not possible – it can be hard to report on things (such as sea level rise, or other compound floods) that one hasn’t experienced yet.  In this talk I present results and work in progress on a stakeholder-engaged approach to modeling environmental forcings on migration (applications to Bangladesh and Senegal), with a focus on data gaps in adaptation modeling and the frontier of opportunities (expert elicitation, through participatory methods and high-frequency data collection) to resolve parts of them.

Bio: Andrew Reid Bell is Assistant Professor of Earth & Environment at Boston University, with a research program focused on identifying pro-poor and pro-environment responses to human-environment dilemmas.  His work draws on agent-based modeling tools, informed by field and behavioral experiments.  He earned a PhD in Natural Resource Management from the University of Michigan in 2010, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and positions at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and New York University before joining Boston University in 2021.