Guest Editorial for Spatial Agent-based Models: Current Practices and Future Trends

Over the last few years we have seen spatial agent-based modeling beginning to bridge the gap from cautious early adoption towards general acceptance within the geographical sciences. One of the key features that has contributed to this is its ability to represent individual characteristics and behaviors.

In order to capture this evolution a while ago, Alison Heppenstall and myself  put out a call for papers that not only asked for papers that looked at current trends in agent-based modeling but also  for those  that highlighted and addressed the advances and challenges that researchers working within the area of spatial agent-based models face. We are happy to say this call is now over and in the current issue of GeoInformatica there are 6 great papers (full citations and links are provided below) and along with a editorial. The papers present not only a great synthesis of the current practices but also several of the key advances and challenges within the realm of spatial agent-based modeling are brought to bare. 

Several common themes will become apparent when reading the articles. All the authors were in agreement that while there has been a noticeable uptake in agent-based modeling, more work is needed to bridge the gap to acceptance as a standard tool within the spatial sciences (e.g. Polhill et al., 2019). Data (variable quality and availability) was an issue that was discussed by almost all of the authors, particularly how to translate high quality data into models to create behavioral rules and the use of novel forms of data to calibrate an empirical model (e.g. Crols and Malleson, 2019). How to represent and simulate behavior in agent-based models was also a recurrent issue with two papers discussing how approaches borrowed from machine learning can be used to improve the representation of behavior (e.g. Runck et al., 2019; Abdulkareem et al., 2019). How to create models that could scale from the micro to macro was another theme with the point being made that current agent-based modeling architectures do not foster models that are easily translatable to a regional or global context (e.g. Taillandier et al., 2019), nor are interactions across scales adequately addressed in most models (e.g. Lippe et al., 2019). The papers also highlight that to cross the bridge from novel tool to full acceptance as a standard tool within the geographical sciences, spatial agent-based modeling still has some way to go. However, the papers in this special issue can therefore be seen as a stepping stone towards this.

Papers in the Special Issue:

• Abdulkareem, S.H., Mustafa, Y.T., Augustijn, E.-W. and Filatova, T. (2019), 'Bayesian Networks for Spatial Learning: A Workflow on Using Limited Survey Data for Intelligent Learning in Spatial Agent-based Models', Geoinformatica, 23(2): 243-268. 
• Crols, T. and Malleson, N. (2019), 'Quantifying the Ambient Population using Hourly Population Footfall Data and an Agent-Based Model of Daily Mobility', Geoinformatica, 23(2): 201-220.
• Lippe, M., Bithell, M., Gotts, N., Natalini, D., Barbrook-Johnson, P., Giupponi, C., Hallier, M., Hofstede, G.J., Le Page, C., Matthews, R.B.,  Schlüter, M., Smith, P., Teglio, A. and Thellmann, K. (2019), 'Using Agent-based Modelling to Simulate Social-ecological Systems Across Scales', GeoInformatica, 23(2): 269-298.
• Polhill, J.G., Ge, J., Hare, M.P., Matthews, K.B., Gimona, A., Salt, D. and Yeluripati, J. (2019), 'Crossing the Chasm: A ‘Tube-map’for Agent-based Social Simulation of Policy Scenarios in Spatially-distributed Systems', GeoInformatica, 23(2): 169-199.
• Runck, B.C., Manson, S., Shook, E., Gini, M. and Jordan, N.R. (2019), 'Using Word Embeddings to Generate Data-driven Human Agent Decision-making from Natural Language', Geoinformatica, 23(2): 243-268.
• Taillandier, P., Gaudou, B., Grignard, A., Huynh, Q.N., Marilleau, N., Caillou, P., Philippon, D. and Drogoul, A. (2019), 'Building, Composing and Experimenting Complex Spatial Models with the GAMA Platform', GeoInformatica, 23(2): 299-322.

Our Editorial:

Heppenstall, A. and Crooks, A.T. (2019), Guest Editorial for Spatial Agent-based Models: Current Practices and Future Trends, GeoInfomatica. 23(2): 243-268 (pdf)