An Agent-Based Model of Elephant Crop Raid Dynamics in the Periyar-Agasthyamalai Complex, India

TL;DR

This paper presents a prototype agent-based model simulating elephant-human interactions in India, incorporating behavioral factors and environmental variables to understand conflict patterns and inform wildlife management strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ABM for elephant crop raiding that integrates complex behaviors, calibration techniques, and scenario analysis specific to the Western Ghats region.

Findings

Wet months increase conflict frequency

Thermoregulation significantly affects elephant movement

Starvation and habituation intensify crop raiding patterns

Abstract

Human-wildlife conflict challenges conservation worldwide, which requires innovative management solutions. We developed a prototype Agent-Based Model (ABM) to simulate interactions between humans and solitary bull Asian elephants in the Periyar-Agasthyamalai complex of the Western Ghats in Kerala, India. The main challenges were the complex behavior of elephants and insufficient movement data from the region. Using literature, expert insights, and field surveys, we created a prototype behavior model that incorporates crop habituation, thermoregulation, and aggression. We designed a four-step calibration method to adapt relocation data from radio-tagged elephants in Indonesia to model elephant movements in the model domain. The ABM's structure, including the assumptions, submodels, and data usage are detailed following the Overview, Design concepts, Details protocol. The ABM simulates various food availability scenarios to study elephant behavior and environmental impact on space use and conflict patterns. The results indicate that the wet months increase conflict and thermoregulation significantly influences elephant movements and crop raiding. Starvation and crop habituation intensify these patterns. This prototype ABM is an initial model that offers information on the development of a decision support system in wildlife management and will be further enhanced with layers of complexity and subtlety across various dimensions. Access the ABM at https://github.com/quest-lab-iisc/abm-elephant-project.