Understanding the Eects of China’s Agro-Environmental Policies on Rural Households’ Labor and Land Allocation with a Spatially Explicit Agent-Based Model Ying Wang1, Qi Zhang2, Srikanta Sannigrahi3, Qirui Li4, Shiqi Tao5, Richard Bilsborrow6, Jiangfeng Li1, Conghe Song7 1School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China 2Department of Earth & Environment, Boston University, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, United States 3School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy University College Dublin, Richview, Clonskeagh, Dublin, D14 E099, Ireland 4Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth 95440, Germany 5Graduate School of Geography at Clark University, 950 Main Street Worcester, MA 01610, USA, United States 6Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 123 W. Franklin St., NC 27516, United States 7Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA, United States Correspondence should be addressed to
[email protected] Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 24(3) 7, 2021 Doi: 10.18564/jasss.4589 Url: http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/24/3/7.html Received: 12-05-2020 Accepted: 10-05-2021 Published: 30-06-2021 Abstract: Understanding household labor and land allocation decisions under agro-environmental policies is challenging due to complex human-environment interactions. Here, we developed a spatially explicit agent- based model based on spatial and socioeconomic data to simulate households’ land and labor allocation de- cisions and investigated the impacts of two forest restoration and conservation programs and one agricultural subsidy program in rural China. Simulation outputs revealed that the forest restoration program accelerates labor out-migration and cropland shrink, while the forest conservation program promotes livelihood diversi- fication via increasing non-farm employment.