Browsing by Author "Berman, Matthew"

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Adaptation and Sustainability in a Small Arctic Community: Results of an Agent-Based Simulation Model
(2004) Berman, Matthew; Nicolson, Craig; Kofinas, Gary P.; Tetlichi, Joe; Martin, Stephanie
"Climate warming and resource development could alter key Arctic ecosystem functions that support fish and wildlife resources harvested by local indigenous communities. A different set of global forces--government policies and tourism markets--increasingly directs local cash economies that communities use to support subsistence activities. Agent-based computational models (ABMs) contribute to an integrated assessment of community sustainability by simulating how people interact with each other and adapt to changing economic and environmental conditions. Relying on research and local knowledge to provide rules and parameters for individual and collective decision making, our ABM generates hypothetical social histories as adaptations to scenario-driven changes in environmental and economic conditions. The model generates projections for wage employment, cash income, subsistence harvests, and demographic change over four decades based on a set of user-defined scenarios for climate change, subsistence resources, development, and government spending. Model outcomes assess how scenarios associated with economic and climate change might affect the local economy, resource harvests, and the well-being of residents for the Western Arctic Canadian community of Old Crow, Yukon. The economic and demographic outcomes suggest implications for less quantifiable social and cultural changes. The model can serve as a discussion tool for a fuller exploration of community sustainability and adaptation issues."
Modeling Regional Dynamics of Human-Rangifer Systems: A Framework for Comparative Analysis
(2013) Berman, Matthew
"Theoretical models of interaction between wild and domestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus; caribou in North America) can help explain observed social-ecological dynamics of arctic hunting and husbandry systems. Different modes of hunting and husbandry incorporate strategies to mitigate effects of differing patterns of environmental uncertainty. Simulations of simple models of harvested wild and domestic herds with density-dependent recruitment show that random environmental variation produces cycles and crashes in populations that would quickly stabilize at a steady state with nonrandom parameters. Different husbandry goals lead to radically different long-term domestic herd sizes. Wild and domestic herds are typically ecological competitors but social complements. Hypothesized differences in ecological competition and diverse human livelihoods are explored in dynamic social-ecological models in which domestic herds competitively interact with wild herds. These models generate a framework for considering issues in the evolution of Human-Rangifer Systems, such as state-subsidized herding and the use of domestic herds for transportation support in hunting systems. Issues considered include the role of geographic factors, markets for Rangifer products, state-subsidized herding, effects of changes in husbandry goals on fate of wild herds, and how environmental shocks, herd population cycles, and policy shifts might lead to system state changes. The models also suggest speculation on the role of geographic factors in the failure of reindeer husbandry to take hold in the North American Arctic. The analysis concludes with suggested empirical strategies for estimating parameters of the model for use in comparative studies across regions of the Arctic."
Seasonal Climate Variation and Caribou Availability: Modeling Sequential Movement Using Satellite-Relocation Data
(2013) Nicolson, Craig; Berman, Matthew; West, Colin Thor; Kofinas, Gary P.; Griffith, Brad; Russell, Don; Dugan, Darcy
"Livelihood systems that depend on mobile resources must constantly adapt to change. For people living in permanent settlements, environmental changes that affect the distribution of a migratory species may reduce the availability of a primary food source, with the potential to destabilize the regional social-ecological system. Food security for Arctic indigenous peoples harvesting barren ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus granti) depends on movement patterns of migratory herds. Quantitative assessments of physical, ecological, and social effects on caribou distribution have proven difficult because of the significant interannual variability in seasonal caribou movement patterns. We developed and evaluated a modeling approach for simulating the distribution of a migratory herd throughout its annual cycle over a multiyear period. Beginning with spatial and temporal scales developed in previous studies of the Porcupine Caribou Herd of Canada and Alaska, we used satellite collar locations to compute and analyze season-by-season probabilities of movement of animals between habitat zones under two alternative weather conditions for each season. We then built a set of transition matrices from these movement probabilities, and simulated the sequence of movements across the landscape as a Markov process driven by externally imposed seasonal weather states. Statistical tests showed that the predicted distributions of caribou were consistent with observed distributions, and significantly correlated with subsistence harvest levels for three user communities. Our approach could be applied to other caribou herds and could be adapted for simulating the distribution of other ungulates and species with similarly large interannual variability in the use of their range."