Agent-Based Modelling and Geographical Information Systems

The book goes from first principles to working spatial models. An agent-based model simulates many individual actors, such as people, each following its own rules. GIS is software for storing and mapping geographic data. The book opens with geographical modelling and the basics of GIS, including QGIS. Later chapters cover designing and building agent-based models, calibrating and validating them, and representing human behaviour. The examples are built in NetLogo, with code on a companion site. By the end a reader should be able to build a model of their own and use it to start a research project.

It is the hands-on companion to an edited Springer volume by some of the same authors. Starting from a shapefile (a common file format for map data) and a question, it gets to a running model with people as agents. The chapters on calibration and validation cover steps most twin projects skip.

Cover via Open Library.