Abstract for: Model evaluation and sensitivity analyses of an acequia community irrigation system dynamics model

Agriculture-based irrigation communities of northern New Mexico, forms of Coupled Natural-Human and Common Pool Resources systems, have survived for centuries despite the arid environment in which they reside. These irrigation communities provide a broad array of ecosystem goods and services, which are being threatened by regional population growth, urbanization, gentrification, economic development, climate change, and other factors. After providing some background and context on an acequia model currently in development, we briefly describe some early calibration metrics, including behavior reproduction and Theil inequality statistics. These measures indicated that the model is reproducing similar trends to those in the observed system. With this information, we then conduct several sensitivity tests to explore model performance to changing economic conditions (rate of rising input costs), social factors (community mutualism), and management decision factors (responsive to land use indicators). We find that the model outputs showed marked changes to various experimental conditions. As more data become available to test model assumptions more robust and in-depth insights may be possible.