Deadman and Gimblett (1994) have explored the use of autonomous agents operating in a GIS-generated computer representation of a landscape specifically for modeling recreational use of arid lands. Gimblett et al. (1997a) gives a good outline of the issues in designing the autonomous agents and the environment in which the agents operate. Additionally, they give a good review of the state of the art for autonomous agents in a GIS environment at the time of their writing in their introduction. The principles described in the articles are implemented in the RBSIM (Recreation Behavior Simulator) at Digital Land Systems Research in Australia (Itami and Gimblett, 1997).
RBSIM uses autonomous-agent modeling of various users of a recreational area in Arizona. The agents, representing hikers, bicyclists, jeeps, etc., are calibrated to real-world data (Gimblett et al., 1997b), and left to interact in a GIS data model of the landscape. The simulation is based on the artificial life principles outlined in Langton (1996), and is designed as a tool for assisting managers of recreational lands. No other studies were found that applied these principles to recreational land uses.