An Agent-based Approach for Simulating Transformation Processes of Socio-ecological Systems as Serious Game

The transformation of socio-ecological systems (SES) has accelerated and is driven by a broad range of factors. Consequently, providing resilience in SES became more challenging, as the drivers are influenced by complex interactions between the social actors (i.e., consumers, producers, and influencers of ecosystem services) and their interactions with the ecosystem itself. As the entire society is affected by landscape changes and lasting damage of ecosystems resulting from the interplay of different drivers, a better public understanding of the transformation processes needs to be achieved. Because dynamics of SES are the result of emergent effects caused by complex local interactions of the actors, the comprehensibility is restricted and public communication is challenging. This work aims at making dynamics of SES experienceable by using an agent-based simulation approach as serious game. By modeling the actors as intelligent software agents, differentiated decision-making and individual goals can be implemented and transformation processes can be simulated.