Working Papers

Edited by Alberto Bardi, Pietro Daniel Omodeo, and Justas Patkauskas
This volume explores the historical relationship between humans and their environments from the perspective of geoanthropology. Focusing on waterscapes, the volume considers the importance of longue durée processes, cross-cultural perspectives, and knowledge production dynamics for understanding the complex conditions behind the Anthropocene and the current ecological crisis. The multidisciplinary contributions draw on a series of discussions conducted over several international conferences and workshops. Divided into three sections – Hydrological Frameworks, Anthropocene Questions, and Water Culture – the volume addresses such themes as the history of waterscape engineering, the politics of technological change, and the conceptual dimensions of Earth system science. The result is a multifaceted inquiry that highlights the significance of the humanities and social sciences for geoanthropological research.

Cite as: Bardi, A., Omodeo, P. D., & Patkauskas, J. (Eds.). (2025). Geoanthropology and waterscapes [Special Issue]. Working Paper, 2025(002),. doi:10.17617/2.3633573. more

Steudle, G., Winkelmann, S., Fürst, S., & Wolf, S.
This paper explores memory mechanisms in complex socio-technical systems, using a mobility de-mand model as an example case. We simplified a large-scale agent-based mobility model into a Markov process and discover that the mobility decision process is non-Markovian. This is due to its dependence on the system’s history, including social structure and local infrastructure, which evolve based on prior mobility decisions. To make the process Markovian, we extend the state space by incorporating two history-dependent components. Although our model is a very much reduced version of the original one, it remains too complex for the application of usual analytic methods. Instead, we employ simulations to examine the functionalities of the two history-dependent components. We think that the structure of the analyzed stochastic process is exemplary for many socio-technical, -economic, -ecological systems. Additionally, it exhibits analogies with the framework of extended evolution, which has previously been used to study cultural evolution.

Cite as: Steudle, G., Winkelmann, S., Fürst, S., & Wolf, S. (2024). Understanding Memory Mechanisms in Socio-Technical Systems: the Case of an Agent-based Mobility Model. Working Papers, 2024(1): 1, 1-23. doi:10.17617/2.3562016. more