chitwanabm 1.5

An agent-based model of the Chitwan Valley, Nepal

Model Description

chitwanabm is an agent-based model of the Western Chitwan Valley, Nepal. The model represents a subset of the population of the Valley using a number of agent types (person, household and neighborhood agents), environmental variables (topography, land use and land cover) and social context variables.

Construction of the model is supported as part of an ongoing National Science Foundation Partnerships for International Research and Education (NSF PIRE) project (grant OISE 0729709) investigating human-environment interactions in the Western Chitwan Valley. Development of the model is in progress, and model documentation is still incomplete.

See the chitwanabm website for more information, past releases, publications, and recent presentations.

Note

The model requires restricted access survey data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) to run. See the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) page on the CVFS for more information.

Getting the Code

Stable releases of chitwanabm are available from the Python Package Index (PyPI).

The latest version of the code (unstable) is available as a zipped snapshot from Github.

You can also browse the source at GitHub.

The source can also be downloaded via git from:

git://github.com/azvoleff/chitwanabm.git

Author Contact Information

Alex Zvoleff

SDSU/UCSB Joint Doctoral Candidate

Department of Geography

San Diego State University

5500 Campanile Dr.

San Diego, CA 92182-4493

Email: [e-mail]

References

The chitwanabm is based off of extensive work done as a part of the Chitwan Valley Family Study. The Chitwan Valley Family Study dataset can be cited as:

Axinn, William G., Arland Thornton, Jennifer S. Barber, Susan A. Murphy, Dirgha Ghimire, Thomas Fricke, Stephen Matthews, Dharma Dangol, Lisa Pearce, Ann Biddlecom, Sundar Shrestha, and Douglas Massey. Chitwan Valley [Nepal] Family Study: Changing Social Contexts and Family Formation [Computer file]. ICPSR04538-v7. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2011-09-06.

The parameterizations used in the model are based in part off of the works listed below:

• Axinn, W. G., and D. J. Ghimire. 2011. Social Organization, Population, and Land Use. American Journal of Sociology 117 (1).

• Biddlecom, A. E.; Axinn, W. G. & Barber, J. S. (2005), ‘Environmental Effects on Family Size Preferences and Subsequent Reproductive Behavior in Nepal’, Population & Environment 26(3), 583-621.

• Ghimire, D. & Mohai, P. (2005), ‘Environmentalism and Contraceptive Use: How people in less developed settings approach environmental issues’, Population & Environment 27(1), 29-61.

• Ghimire, D. J., and W. G. Axinn. 2010. Community context, land use, and first birth. Rural Sociology 75 (3):478-513.

• Ghimire, D. J. & Hoelter, L. F. (2007), ‘Land use and first birth timing in an agricultural setting’, Population & Environment 28, 289-320.

• Massey, D. S., W. G. Axinn, and D. J. Ghimire. 2010. Environmental change and out-migration: evidence from Nepal. Population and Environment.

• Yabiku, S. (2006), ‘Land Use and Marriage Timing in Nepal’, Population & Environment 27(5), 445-461.

• Yabiku, S. (2006), ‘Neighbors and neighborhoods: effects on marriage timing’, Population Research and Policy Review 25(4), 305-327.