Digital Commons Network^™

Co-Developing A Knowledge Portal To Support Stakeholders In Utilizing Uncertain Multi-Model Based Information On Freshwater-Related Hazards Of Climate Change, Fabian Kneier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Co-produced climate services are increasingly recognized as a means for effective generation and utilization of relevant climate information to support decision-makers in taking climate change into account in their risk portfolios. However, there is a structural lack of appropriate, tailored climate services and tools, particularly in developing countries. Among the challenges are (1) how to represent uncertainty quantitatively in a way that is both scientifically correct and utilizable to the diverse users of the hazard information and (2) how to integrate global information with quantified uncertainty into regional-scale assessments of water-related climate change risk and adaptation assessments in a participatory …

Uncertainties In Snowpack Projections Over North-Western North America From A Large-Ensemble Rcm And A Hydrologic Model, Rajesh Shrestha

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Uncertainties in hydro-climatic projections arise out of the use of different climate forcings, models and methods, with potentially large noise compared to change signal. In this study, we used two structurally different approaches: (i) a large ensemble (50 realizations) of Canadian Regional Climate Model (CanRCM4-LE) and (ii) Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) hydrologic model driven by statistically downscaled GCM ensemble, and analysed the maximum snow water equivalent (SWEmax) projections over North-Western North America – a region heavily dependent on the snowpack freshwater storage. We considered the spatial and temporal variability of changes under 1.0°C to 4.0°C warming above the preindustrial global …

Co-Developing A Knowledge Portal To Support Stakeholders In Utilizing Uncertain Multi-Model Based Information On Freshwater-Related Hazards Of Climate Change, Fabian Kneier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Co-produced climate services are increasingly recognized as a means for effective generation and utilization of relevant climate information to support decision-makers in taking climate change into account in their risk portfolios. However, there is a structural lack of appropriate, tailored climate services and tools, particularly in developing countries. Among the challenges are (1) how to represent uncertainty quantitatively in a way that is both scientifically correct and utilizable to the diverse users of the hazard information and (2) how to integrate global information with quantified uncertainty into regional-scale assessments of water-related climate change risk and adaptation assessments in a participatory …

Dynamic Modelling As A Support Tool For Forestall Uncertainty In Complex Urban Systems: Edmonton And Metro Vancouver Case Study, Sinisa Vukicevic

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Planning, in essence, is dealing with uncertainty. Planners forecast future population, employment, dwelling units, and land uses for the following 20, 50, or even 100 years ahead. The further we go into the future; the higher the uncertainty. To deal with uncertainty, planners produce scenarios. Scenarios, in the context of planning, are development options that could be based on different assumptions for future growth. More scenarios means testing out a larger suit of options and their implications on a set of relevant criteria. In Edmonton, Canada, we developed an Urban growth model for the city where we dealt with uncertainty …

Dynamic Modelling As A Support Tool For Forestall Uncertainty In Complex Urban Systems: Edmonton And Metro Vancouver Case Study, Sinisa Vukicevic

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Planning, in essence, is dealing with uncertainty. Planners forecast future population, employment, dwelling units, and land uses for the following 20, 50, or even 100 years ahead. The further we go into the future; the higher the uncertainty. To deal with uncertainty, planners produce scenarios. Scenarios, in the context of planning, are development options that could be based on different assumptions for future growth. More scenarios means testing out a larger suit of options and their implications on a set of relevant criteria. In Edmonton, Canada, we developed an Urban growth model for the city where we dealt with uncertainty …

Uncertainty In Pareto Fronts Of Land Use Allocation Caused By Spatial Input Data, Moritz Hildemann

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Pursuing the single goal of maximal agricultural production in land use management has proven to involve many drawbacks, including negative environmental, economic and social impacts. Finding an optimal land use allocation involves various contradicting short-term and long-term goals depending on the location and its demands. Existing multi-objective optimization techniques can incorporate multiple goals in land use allocation, but none addresses the uncertainty introduced by the necessary spatial input data. Land use classifications, soil maps, ground water level maps or biodiversity maps are exemplary spatial data products required for land use allocation problems. These spatial data can be imprecise or inaccurate, …

Incorporating Probabilistic Policy Adoption Within Bilevel Optimization Solution Methods For Targeting Environmental Policies, Brad Barnart

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Much research has focused on the use of optimization algorithms to derive a set of optimal solutions that exhibit trade-offs among multiple objectives. In the context of targeting environmental policies to improve water quality, bilevel optimization solution methods are particularly advantageous because, similar to principle-agent theory, they account for the optimizing behavior of both policy makers and policy followers. That is, bilevel methods generate the Pareto set of optimal policy solutions that both optimize the objectives of a policy maker (e.g., improve water quality over large scales) and the objectives of the policy followers (e.g., improve efficient use of resources …

Model Decisions And Modelling Cultures, Lieke Melsen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Give different people the same recipe and ingredient, the final dish will still taste different. The same is true when talking about modelling; give different modelers the same model, the results might still look different. It is widely acknowledged that environmental models are prone to uncertainty, still scientists and decision makers often perceive models as being something “objective”. However, in the process from problem to simulation, there are several steps that require the modeler’s input and decisions. These can influence or even steer the model’s result. As such, models should be perceived as social constructs. Addor & Melsen (WRR, 2019) …

An Innovative Integrated Modelling Tool To Assess And Design Territorial Crop-Livestock Systems, Rui Catarino

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Fostering local exchanges between specialized arable and livestock farms can simultaneously help to develop crop diversification and re-localization of livestock feed production, two major sustainability challenges of industrial agriculture. However, the aggregated benefits and drawbacks of developing a “Territorial Crop-Livestock System” (TCLS) based on exchanges is yet to be stablished. A major lock-in is the lack of decision support systems to analyse the underpinning dynamics and associated uncertainties of necessary socio-technical changes and to design necessary organizational aspects within and among farms. This paper presents an innovative high-resolution multi-agent and dynamic spatial modelling framework of agricultural landscape, MAELIA, developed to …

An Innovative Integrated Modelling Tool To Assess And Design Territorial Crop-Livestock Systems, Rui Catarino

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Fostering local exchanges between specialized arable and livestock farms can simultaneously help to develop crop diversification and re-localization of livestock feed production, two major sustainability challenges of industrial agriculture. However, the aggregated benefits and drawbacks of developing a “Territorial Crop-Livestock System” (TCLS) based on exchanges is yet to be stablished. A major lock-in is the lack of decision support systems to analyse the underpinning dynamics and associated uncertainties of necessary socio-technical changes and to design necessary organizational aspects within and among farms. This paper presents an innovative high-resolution multi-agent and dynamic spatial modelling framework of agricultural landscape, MAELIA, developed to …

Robust Resilience: Decision Making With Ensemble Of Metrics Improves Response To Novel Shocks, Patrick Steinmann

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In exploratory model-based decision support for socio-environmental resilience, performance metrics must be specified to value the desirability of alternative outcomes. However, resilience is not a well-defined property, but a multidisciplinary boundary object, for which many different metrics have been proposed. This introduces uncertainty into the decision-making process. The consequences of this are unclear, but may be significant in light of the societal, environmental and economic costs of resilience-building interventions. We study the possible effects of this metric uncertainty by exposing a generic agri-food model to various exogenous shocks, and quantifying its response using a variety of conceptually comparable, yet technically …

Land Use Scenarios Of Future Urbanization In Flood Prone Areas: A Case Study In The South Of Rome, Simona Mannucci

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land use change modelling is an effective method to analyze the impact of future scenarios on land use patterns and assess the consequences of plans and policies, in particular for cities already vulnerable to the effects of the changing climate conditions; to propose effective responses, understanding drivers and patterns of urban growth is fundamental. This study investigates plausible urban development patterns in the X Municipality of Rome. In this municipality, the lack of regulations and policies over the past decades has produced urban forms of different kinds: a formal consolidated and an informal non-consolidated. Both formal and informal settlements are …

Statistical Analyses Of Model Ensembles For Policy Support, Judith Verstegen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Scenario-thinking has become common in modelling for policy support, particularly through the climate change mitigation scenarios developed over the successive IPCC reports. Often, multi-model ensemble runs are performed, representing a set of possible descriptions of the modelled system to account for our limited understanding of this system. For each scenario, this results in a distribution of model outcomes that represents the range of potential system states and their probabilities. In our opinion, model outcome distributions are not used to the fullest at the moment. For example, only the median and minimum and maximum are reported, possibly because policy makers are …

Statistical Analyses Of Model Ensembles For Policy Support, Judith Verstegen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Scenario-thinking has become common in modelling for policy support, particularly through the climate change mitigation scenarios developed over the successive IPCC reports. Often, multi-model ensemble runs are performed, representing a set of possible descriptions of the modelled system to account for our limited understanding of this system. For each scenario, this results in a distribution of model outcomes that represents the range of potential system states and their probabilities. In our opinion, model outcome distributions are not used to the fullest at the moment. For example, only the median and minimum and maximum are reported, possibly because policy makers are …

Uncertainty And Sensitivity Analysis For Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Wastewater Treatment Plant, Giorgio Mannina, Alida Cosenza, Taise Ferreira Rebouças

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper presents the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of a plat-wide mathematical model for wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The mathematical model assesses direct and indirect (due to the energy consumption) greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from a WWTP employing a whole-plant approach. The model includes: i. the kinetic/mass-balance based model regarding nitrogen; ii. two-step nitrification process; iii. N₂O formation both during nitrification and denitrification (as dissolved and off-gas concentration). Important model factors have been selected by using the Extended - Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Testing (FAST) global sensitivity analysis method. A scenario analysis has been performed in order to evaluate …

Uncertainty In Drinking Water Supplies: Exploring Stochastic Source Water Quality Generation Methods, William J. Raseman, Joseph R. Kasprzyk, William Kleiber, Rajagopalan Balaji

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This work explores stochastic source water quality generation methods to aid in the characterization of uncertainty in water treatment planning. Water treatment plants (WTPs) are tasked with providing citizens safe and reliable drinking water; however, variability of surface water quality due to seasonal fluctuations and extreme events (e.g., flooding and wildfires) can overwhelm a WTP's capacity to do so. By characterizing source water uncertainty and creating realistic water quality scenarios, decision makers can adjust operating policies and make infrastructural changes to improve the reliability of their system. Building on methods from stochastic streamflow generation, including, autoregressive moving average models, vector …

Methodology For Quantifying Model Factor Sensitivity, Uncertainty, And Estimation For Integrated Groundwater/Surface Water Hydrologic Models, Seonggyu Park, Ryan Bailey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated water resource management in river basins is often accomplished using complex coupled groundwater/surface water hydrologic models. Around 30 such models, each with a distinct modeling code and solute strategy, have been developed and applied to around 40 regions worldwide, with model domains ranging from 100 to 100,000 km². These coupled flow models, however, have not been used extensively and when used, focus on specific and practical management questions rather than addressing appropriate methodology e.g. quantifying parameter sensitivity and uncertainty, and estimating land surface and hydrogeologic parameters. Thus, they are limited in the extent to which they can …

Evaluating Uncertainty In Stormwater Control Measures (Scms) Using The Epa Stormwater Management Model Linked With Markov Chain Monte Carlo Uncertainty Technique, Tyler Dell, Alfy Joseph George

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Stormwater Control Measures (SCMs) are commonly used to mitigate the effects of urban development on floods and water quality. SCMs have been shown to reduce stormwater volume and peak discharge from impervious areas, and by using natural processes, improve the water quality. With increasing adoption across the U.S. due largely to flood control regulations, SCMs are installed in most newly developed or redeveloped areas. Simultaneously, since the promulgation of total maximum daily load (TMDL) programs, municipalities seek to prevent stormwater pollution to the nation’s water bodies through implementation of SCMs. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of SCMs for …

Spatial Scale Dependency Issues In The Application Of The Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (Musle), David Gwapedza, Denis A. Hughes, Andrew R. Slaughter

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Modified Universal Soil Loss Equation (MUSLE) is used within a range of hydrological models to estimate daily and long-term sediments yields from catchments of various sizes. As part of a project designed to link a sediment model to other existing water resources models (rainfall-runoff, water resources yield and water quality models), the question of spatial scale dependencies within the MUSLE was raised. This study attempted to identify the spatial scale dependency issues from previous studies that used the MUSLE but found little information. Some hypothetical examples are therefore presented to try and isolate the key issues and the results …

How Many Cats (Or “Cat-Equivalents”) Does It Take To Cause An Extinction? And How Simple Can You Make A Model Before It Becomes Useless?, Kate O'Brien, Michaela Plein, Matthew Holden, Nigel Bean, Christopher Baker, Eve Mcdonald-Madden

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Managers make decisions on how to protect and restore environmental systems, along with associated ecosystem services. Ideally, these decisions are made with the support of predictive models, built on a sound understanding of how the system works, validated with data and accompanied by credible estimates of uncertainty. However, in many cases data are scarce or non-existent, understanding of key processes is limited, and disturbances such as land-use change or invasive species may be fundamentally altering the way the system functions. If there are insufficient data available for meaningful parameterization or validation, and no prospect of more data becoming available, how …

Direct Sampling Of Measured Or Model Data To Improve Uncertainty Analysis In Life Cycle Assessment, Christopher Mutel, Pascal Lesage

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Standard practice in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is to assume that each uncertain parameter behaves independently under Monte Carlo sampling. This leads to cases which are clearly incorrect, such as engine CO2 emissions being sampled independent from the fuel efficiency, or different providers into a market (such as an electricity market) increasing or decreasing without any regard to the behaviour of other providers. We have developed an open-source toolkit (https://github.com/PascalLesage/brightway2-presamples) that can solve these and other problems through the direct use of measured or pre-computed data and Monte Carlo samples. We demonstrate how this toolkit can provide a number of …

How Does Uncertainty Framing Affect Whether A Question Is Answerable?, Joseph Guillaume, Raimo Hämäläinen, Casey Helgeson, Matti Kummu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental modelling exercises often aim to answer specific question(s) that arise from particular environmental management problems. But these questions are not always answerable given current knowledge, and where they are considered unanswerable, this perceived knowledge gap can be used to justify action or inaction, as invoked respectively by the precautionary principle and climate change denialists. Whether a question is judged answerable can turn on how the role of uncertainty is communicated when providing scientific information, that is, on how uncertainties are framed. Uncertainty framing can hence be manipulated to influence how information is used in decision making, for example through …

Exploring Pathways For Urban Coastal Flooding In The City Of Miami, Florida, Marjolijn Haasnoot, Laurens Bouwer, Obeysekera Jayantha, Kenneth Konyha, Katherine Hagemann, Maria Loinaz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Coastal and low-land flooding in urban areas is causing increasing nuisance and flood damages in many communities across South Florida. Sea-level rise, storm surge and extreme rainfall events are projected to increase the likelihood of such flood events in the future. Here, we present the results from a study by a consortium of researchers and local policymakers and planners, aimed at understanding which adaptation actions in the water system and local communities can deliver more resilience to flooding.

We followed an iterative and collaborative approach to explore adaptation pathways using model simulations and expert-judgement. We focus on a coastal watershed …

Time Evolving Robustness Evaluation For Risk-Based Cooperative Long-Term Water Supply Development Pathways That Include Short-Term Drought Mitigation Actions, Bernardo Trindade, Patrick M. Reed, Gregory W. Characklis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Well-coordinated regional short-term drought management actions can be used by water utilities to mitigate water scarcity and financial risk, potentially postponing the need of new infrastructure construction. However, in the longer term, infrastructure expansion is likely to be necessary to address rising water demands. Given their interdependence, it is important to capture how short-term mitigation strategies influence longer term infrastructure development pathways. Our research exploits risk-based triggers for short and long-term actions (respectively, water transfers, restrictions, and financial hedges; and construction of reuse, water treatment, reservoir capacities, etc.). However, a robustness evaluation of these pathways must account for the integrated …

Using Multi-Objective Optimization To Support Urban Planning, Jonas Schwaab, Kalyanmoy Deb, Erik Goodman, Sven Lautenbach, Maarten Van Strien, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Globally urban growth destroys fertile soils and endangers food security. Fertile soils are often located in the vicinity of existing urban areas. Thus, preserving high-quality soils often conflicts with the objective of compact city development. Urban planners have to account for both of these and many other objectives and react to political decisions which put a higher weight on some of them. In addition, urban planners have to deal with uncertain projections on population growth and the demand for housing. We used a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to show for a case study region in Switzerland how robust urban growth patterns …

The Stability And Ecophysiological Realism Of Calibrated Parameters In A Detailed Vegetation Model (Waves), R. W. Vervoort, J. D. Henry, M. Gharun, M. A. Adams

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

WAVES is a daily time-step one-dimensional vegetation, water and energy transfer model that has been used extensively across Australia (and globally) to simulate ecohydrological processes. In particular it has been used extensively for assessing future recharge under climate change. A literature review suggests parameter values from the user manual are most commonly used in research. This suggests that further investigation into the stability and equifinality of the parameters might be warranted, specifically since the model is used for scenario studies. This study made use of an extensive sapflow and soil moisture data set for 7 tree vegetation sites in the …

Using Scenario Analysis To Investigate Uncertainty In Water Resource Management, Baihua Fu, Joseph Guillaume, Mike Asher, Tony Jakeman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water resource management is a challenging task due to the complexity and uncertainty of the environmental systems and challenges of addressing multiple stakeholder perspectives. A crucial issue is therefore in specifically understanding if and how we can make decisions under such deep uncertainty.

We examined this issue in a case study which estimates groundwater sustainability, farm profit and ecological outcomes of many drivers (e.g. climate change, water policy, farm practices). An integrated model was developed for this purpose. It encompasses a surface and groundwater model, water allocation rules, a farm decision and crop model and an ecology model. Scenarios were …

A Conceptual Model To Guide Exploration Of Global Food-Water Security, Joseph H. A. Guillaume, Matti Kummu, Miina Porkka, Olli Varis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

While food security can be approached as a local issue, it is strongly influenced by factors at inter-regional and global scales related to production, transaction (e.g. trade and distribution) and consumption, and by drivers such as climate, population growth, diet change, as well as social, political and technological developments. Action on food security therefore benefits from being informed by current global patterns and potential future changes and taking an integrated approach to assessing impacts of proposed responses. Modelling can notably contribute by assessing the influence of various factors on food security. Due to the significant complexity and uncertainty involved, model …

Feedback Versus Uncertainty, Ronald R. P. Van Nooijen, Markus Hrachowitz, Alla G. Kolechkina

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Even without uncertainty about the model structure or parameters, the output of a hydrological model run still contains several sources of uncertainty. These are: measurement errors affecting the input, the transition from continuous time and space to discrete time and space, which causes loss of information about the input, discretization of the model equations resulting in errors due to the discretization scheme and the use of finite precision calculations in model evaluation. Interval analysis can provide upper bounds on the output error due to all of these sources. This paper focuses on tracking uncertainty about input values and the effects …

Sensitivity And Uncertainty Analysis Of A Plant-Wide Model For Carbon And Energy Footprint Of Wastewater Treatment Plants, Giorgio Mannina, Alida Cosenza, Riccardo Gori, Reza Sobhani, Manel Garrido, Diego Rosso

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper presents the sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of a mathematical model for Greenhouse gas (GHG) and energy consumption assessment from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The model is able to simultaneously describe the main biological and physical-chemical processes in WWTP. Specifically, the mathematical model includes the main processes of the water and sludge lines influencing the methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), and carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Further, the process energy demand and the energy recovery are also taken into account. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the key factors and sources …