Web appendix to “Simulating the Impacts of Climate Variability and Change on Crop Varietal Diversity in Mali (West-Africa) Using Agent-Based Modeling Approach”, by

Step 1: System delimitation and identification The objective was to allow the different stakeholders involved in the modelling process to reach a common understanding of the problem to be resolved and a shared representation of the system, and to define the scope of the study. More than ten participants (researchers, farmers, governmental organisation, non-governmental organisation) took part in this one-day session. In addition, a facilitator and a modeller managed the different modelling process. Specifically, this step concerned the description of the system using an overview diagram (Figure 1) after presenting an example. The description of the system at this step consisted of identifying in the following order: 1) the main functions (or processes), 2) the actors and resources, and 3) the communication systems through which the actors interact and exchange resources (Figure 1).