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Politicians and administrators are interested in the outcomes that can be achieved at the end of participatory planning processes (Ansell and Gash 2008). Simulation exercises are a way to allow stakeholders to visualize the potential paths and outcomes of these processes. But unlike the more qualitative support tools of simulation, the mathematical models of simulation are still unable to demonstrate their adequacy for field observations. This article presents a simulation model based on field data that should be a step forward in this regard, insofar as its ability to digitally reproduce the observed outcomes of environmental collaborative-management processes is validated by several case studies.