MIROT: A multi-agent system model for the simulation of the dynamics of carbon resources of a West-African village territory

The decrease in carbon (C) resources in West African savannas falls within local agroecological and global environmental issues. Understanding how they are impacted by human activities at the village level is thus crucial. Multi-agent system (MAS) formalism can assist in representing the complex interactions between ecological and socioeconomic dynamics. A MAS model (MIROT) was implemented into the CORMAS platform to simulate the dynamics of C resources of a village in Burkina Faso. The representation of the environment was achieved by importing data from digital maps. Two bio-economic models (implemented with GAMS) were coupled with MIROT and used to simulate optimized farmer's strategies of decision at the farm level. Various scenarios were compared from simulations to assess the relative impact of climatic, demographic, economic or social factors on the viability of the village system as estimated by its carbon budget. Key word: renewable resource-multi-agents systems-economic model of optimization-carbon-mixed farming system-Africa