1. Marcus Spiegel Dr. Lyndon Estes Professor Kelly Caylor
Modeling Agricultural Expansion in Zambia to Predict and Minimize Tradeoffs
Marcus Spiegel
Dr. Lyndon Estes
Professor Kelly Caylor

2. Motivation

3. Fieldwork

4. Multi-objective Optimization

5. Allocating Pixels to Crops: The Agro-Knapsack Problem
Figure courtesy of
Dr. Lyndon Estes

6. Next Steps
Implement new biodiversity metric from Newbold et al. (2015)
Incorporate yield variability due to uncertainty in rainfall
Identify key areas for infrastructure development (irrigation, access to land)
Plan a field season in 2016 for refining input grids and model application

7. Acknowledgments Dr. Lyndon Estes Professor Kelly Caylor
Professor Tom Evans
Zambia Agricultural Research Institute
Mr. Stalin Sichinga
Mr. Sesele Sokotela
PEI and Smith-Newton Scholars Program