Austin Trent Ledford

November 14th, 2017

As instructed in the assignment, I created a feedback loop by creating a relationship between the
amount of impervious surfaces (as a measure of development) and the amount of lots purchased. I did
this by creating a new converter and connecting it to both the impervious surface converter and the
amount of lots purchased converter. This is seen in the picture below (as well as the values I used in
that converter).

The results of this intervention include initial sharp changes in the amount of lots purchased and land
developed (both of which were sharp increases), as well as sharp decreases in the amount of fishing
licenses sold, the amount of hiking equipment sold, and the amount of forested land left. However, the
rate at which the amount of land being developed increases begins to decline (as the rate of decrease
for the amount of fishing licenses sold, the amount of hiking equipment sold, and the amount of
forested land left declines as well) while the amount of lots sold begins to rapidly decline (resulting in a
shape like that of the S-shaped growth with an overshoot and a collapse).
One policy intervention I would implement in order to counteract environmental degradation would be
to implement a program in which construction would decrease and stop once a certain area of
impermeable surface was reached. My hypothesis about this measure would be, though it would cause
less homes to be built overall, it would also limit environmental degradation. If this hypothesis is right,
the data present in the graphs shown below demonstrate this. The results (as shown as graphs) are
shown below.
As shown from the data, although Eno River State Park still lost a lot of land, the effects environmental
degradation have been reduced. As seen in my hypothesis, the amount of lots sold was cut short but,
this resulted in less of a drop in the revenue from hiking and fishing (which rest at just above 49.5
million dollars and 1.3 thousand dollars, respectively, rather than decreasing below 47 million dollars
and 1.15 thousand dollars). Thus, from this data, it can be concluded that the policy I proposed could be
used to limit environmental degradation.

Here is the equation I used for the policy: