The CAVES project started in March 2005 and lasted for 37 months. The purpose of the CAVES project was to couple policy concerns for complex human-environmental systems with linked physical, biological and social computer models based soundly in complexity science. To achieve this purpose, the project met three specific objectives:

• Evidence: The substantial qualitative and statistical evidence brought to the project by partners responsible for the case studies was further developed to inform the design and stakeholder validation of models of land use.
  
  
• Models: Agent based social models linked to biogeophysical models were developed to investigate why some external shocks to complex social networks are followed by volatile episodes and some are not. The models were based on and constrained by qualitative and statistical evidence.
  
  
• Generalisation: Clusters of consistent models were developed at several levels and axes of aggregation that, at the most descriptive level, captured the relevant detail of complex systems and, at the most abstract level, allowed for closed-form solutions and ready comparison with models in the literature on complex systems.

• Evidence gathering and knowledge elicitation
  
  
• Modeling procedures
  
  
• Validation of models

Three case studies were chosen, that differ significantly in apparent resilience to both internal stresses and external shocks and also differ with respect to culture and ethnography.

• One study was of the Grampian Region of Scotland in the UK where, despite a range of external shocks and endogenous demographic change, land tenure and use has not changed greatly since the Second World War despite large-scale policy changes with entry to the European Union, and epidemics among agricultural livestock.
  
  
• The second was of the Oder River Valley in Poland, which has undergone considerable changes in land use, water regime and social structure over that period.
  
  
• The third was of the Vhembe district of Limpopo province, South Africa (chosen partly to ensure that our models are relevant beyond Europe) where land use change following the end of apartheid has been rapid and enormous.

The CAVES project produced models of the evolution of social networks conditioned by interaction among social institutions and the physical and biological environment. The scientific purpose of the project was to identify reasons why some complex systems seem to be more resilient to internal stresses and external shocks than other systems. The technological and applied objective of the project was to prove a method whereby models of complexity can be used to capture observed social processes and to formulate social policies conditioned by social and natural complexity.

Funding Agency:
European Commission

Project time frame:
March 2005 to March 2008

IIASA Researchers:
Jan Sendzimir
Piotr Magnuszewski

For more information, contact Jan Sendzimir

Responsible for this page: Jun Watabe
Last updated: 24 Feb 2011