Assessing multiagent parcelization performance in the MABEL simulation model using Monte Carlo replication experiments

In this paper we present and test the functionality of a parcelization algorithm, implemented in our spatially explicit, agent-based land-use-change model which we call the Multi Agent-based Behavioral Economic Landscape (MABEL) model. In order to test the best possible spatial configuration of the algorithm and its efficiency compared with historically observed land-use changes, we employed a Monte Carlo simulation approach with a series of replication experiments across time, and compared observed changes between 1970 and 1990, and across two different landscapes in Michigan, USA. We compare the simulated parcel shapes with historically observed land-use changes using the landscape-ecology metric program, FRAGSTATS.