Modeling Cumulative Effects of Wildfire Hazard Policy and Exurban Household Location Choices: An Application of Agent-based Simulations

Abstract

The flow of amenity-based migrants to fire-prone areas of the US Rocky Mountain West has brought increasing attention to wildfire hazard mitigation management. This paper attempts to build agent-based models which link natural amenity driven exurban growth to wildfire mitigation regimes to provide a framework for assessing cumulative effects of hazard mitigation policy under alternative policy structures. Three simulations were built to demonstrate how agent-based models (ABM) can be used to examine and compare people's choices of residential location in response to natural amenities and wildfire policies. This paper investigates the ways in which policy effects are incorporated dynamically into the land development decision-making process at an individual level in a case study area. Our results show that individual location choices with respect to wildfire risk are sensitive to wildfire mitigation policies.

Notes

1. People who migrate to the countryside to escape city life.

2. Areas parcelled up into smaller lots for new development.