Modeling Human-Environment Interactions and Their Ecological Implications in Chitwan National Park, Nepal

The complexity of interconnected human and natural systems can lead to surprising dynamics, with unexpected implications for long-term management. The Chitwan Valley, Nepal is home to the Chitwan National Park, an internationally recognized biodiversity hotspot, and also supports a rapidly growing rural population. Recent work has uncovered significant feedbacks between social and environmental change in the region. To better understand the implications for habitat areas, and to develop a broader understanding of developing rural systems, we present an agent-based model of the Chitwan Valley coupled human-natural system. Drawing on a field survey conducted in fall 2009, as well as on an extensive existing survey dataset from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (Axinn et al. 2007), we consider important feedbacks between micro-scale demographic decision-making (marriage timing and family size preferences), resource use, and land-use and land-cover change. Our results reveal the role of these feedbacks in determining the emergent dynamics of environmental change in Chitwan, and indicate the importance of the spatial context of human decision-making. This research is significant in explaining the role of reciprocal connections between micro-level social and environmental change in influencing macro-scale environmental outcomes. Understanding these relationships is critically important in areas like the Chitwan Valley, where a rapidly growing human population borders a protected area of international significance.