A role for goal-oriented autonomous agents in modeling people-environment interactions in forest recreation

Increased demand by the public for diverse and quality recreation opportunities has placed considerable pressure on the natural resource and its management. This problem is compounded by a general lack of understanding of interactions between people and forest recreation environments that result in wide variations in perceptions, expectations, and patterns of choice and use. Emerging technologies, such as distributed artificial intelligence, provide a mechanism to integrate advances in recreation research with a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) based environment. Distributed artificial intelligence provides the foundation for a modeling system to simulate the interactions between recreators and their environment. Despite the work done by many researchers in the development of object-oriented modeling and simulation languages, GIS, nonhuman agent design and simulations, no single system has been constructed to handle the complexity of goal-oriented autonomous human agents seeking recreational opportunities in natural environments. This paper describes a theoretical framework and a model for simulating hiker behavior in a natural environment using intelligent agents, discrete event simulation (DEVS) and GIS data. The results of hiker interactions are summarized to provide feedback on the implications for alternative recreation management planning.