Decoding Farmers' Choices in a Changing Climate: An Agent-Based Model to Elucidate Risk Preferences and Water Resilience

Agricultural systems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change due to rising temperatures, shifts in runoff patterns, and fluctuations in seasonality. Farmers, as primary stakeholders, provide invaluable first-hand insights into the manifestation of water-related extreme events and the effectiveness of different adaptation strategies to enhance climate resilience. This study introduces ABNexus, an agent-based model designed to capture the complexity of farmers’ decision-making processes and their interactions with agrohydrological systems under climate change. Using a bottom–up approach that incorporates realistic human behavior, we conducted 460 randomly sampled surveys among farmers across the main irrigation districts of the Lake Como and Adda River basin in northern Italy. The analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity in adaptive capacity and risk preferences, influencing farmers’ crop selection and irrigation methods under different climate scenarios. Our simulations show that risk aversion significantly shapes adaptation decisions, with more cautious farmers tending to retain traditional crop-irrigation combinations and showing reluctance toward the adoption of water-efficient practices. These insights support policymakers and irrigation managers in refining local water management and climate adaptation policies, enhancing decision-making robustness, and reducing maladaptation risks for more resilient agricultural systems.