Land Use Management Using Multi-Agent Based Simulation in a Watershed in South of the Brazil

The change in land use in a region can have huge impacts on the environment. For land use management to be effective, it is necessary to explore the region of interest, its behavior, and the impact of each change. This study aims to present the development and simulation of an agent-based model for land use management in the Arroio Fragata Watershed, located in the south of Brazil. For this, regional data, maps of land use, and maps of sub-watersheds were used. And the agents were defined as managers who modify land uses in the region. Through some parameters and variables, a volume of water was defined that varied with each change in land use. The impact on the environment was analysed by varying the number of managers and land uses. The model generated satisfactory results and described the behavior of the agents and the environment according to the defined rules. It became conspicuous that some land uses to generate a greater impact, depending on the water consumption and the area of occupation in the region. In addition, some simulations showed that despite being the ones that resulted in the greatest changes in the environment, they were not the ones that generated the greatest impact.