Disastrous Agent Behaviour—ABM and Behaviour Realism in Disaster Research

Conference Paper (2026)
Author(s)

Harko Verhagen (Stockholm University)

Nanda Wijermans (Stockholm University)

Frank Dignum (Umeå University)

Isabel Florence Franke (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)

Fjalar J. de Haan (School of Computing and Information Systems)

Ruth Meyer (Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics)

Samuel Rufat (LMD Ecole Polytechnique)

Loïs Vanhée (Umeå University, University of Tromsø)

Xin Zhou (Umeå University)

Lorenzo Zino (Politecnico di Torino)

Research Group
Transport and Logistics
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-31712-4_44 Final published version
More Info
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Publication Year
2026
Language
English
Research Group
Transport and Logistics
Pages (from-to)
620-632
Publisher
Springer
ISBN (print)
9783032317117
Event
20th Annual Social Simulation Conference, SSC 2025 (2025-08-25 - 2025-08-29), Delft, Netherlands
Page Views
24
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Abstract

In this paper, we advocate for behavioural realism in simulation models of crises and disasters. Rather than prescribing what we think this entails and what best practice would be, we begin to take stock of the extant work in this space. We tentatively review (1) the use of behavioural theories in agent-based models and (2) the behavioural theories suggested in the crisis and disasters literature. This is a pilot study to map the territory and get our bearings, and thus the number of selected papers and reviews thereof are very limited. However, we can already see from this small survey that the theories and concepts favoured in ABM have little overlap with those found in disaster and crisis research. A future investigation will focus on this, as well as on connecting event characteristics with potential theories and concepts of use for types of events and disaster management phases. A comprehensive framework proposal we discovered during our review may support this future work.

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