Computer Engineering Commons^™

Mathematical Modelling Of Sustainable Fisheries Management In Morocco, H. Essekhyr, K. Elkalay, K. Khalil

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Moroccan Atlantic coast is considered as one of the richest fishing areas in the world that support a rich assortment of aquatic biological diversity. In the past decade, the fisheries sector has achieved considerable growth. However, the sector suffers from many serious problems that need to be resolved to ensure their sustainable development. Such problems include over-fishing in the coastal, degradation of the marine environment and coastal resources. In this study, a mass-balance Ecopath Model of the Moroccan Atlantic coast is constructed, for improving fisheries management and attaining sustainable development of coastal fisheries in this ecosystem. The results indicate that …

Sobol’ Sensitivity Analysis For Stressor Impacts On Honeybee Colonies, Carmen Kuan, Robert Curry, Gloria Degrandi-Hoffman, Kris Garber, Andrew Kanarek, Marcia Snyder, Tom Purucker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We employ Monte Carlo simulation and nonlinear sensitivity analysis techniques to describe the dynamics of a bee exposure model, VarroaPop. Daily simulations are performed of hive population trajectories, taking into account queen strength, foraging success, mite impacts, weather, colony resources, population structure, and other important variables. This allows us to test the effects of defined pesticide exposure scenarios versus controlled simulations that lack pesticide exposure. The daily resolution of the model also allows us to conditionally identify sensitivity metrics. We use the variancebased global decomposition sensitivity analysis method, Sobol’, to assess firstand secondorder parameter sensitivities within VarroaPop, allowing us to …

A Scalable Approach To Modelling Health Impacts Of Air Pollution Based On Globally Available Data, Gregor Kiesewetter, Wolfgang Schöpp, Markus Amann

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated assessment of air pollution and its impacts typically requires pre-calculated atmospheric transfer relations on a fine spatial resolution. While such concepts have been applied successfully for Europe and other regions with high data coverage, extending calculations to world regions with low local data availability is challenging and needs to be based on globally available data sets. Here we introduce a scalable approach which has been developed to expand the calculations of health impacts from exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) in the Greenhouse Gas-Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) integrated assessment model to (almost) any desired …

Documenting Models For Interoperability And Reusability, Rajbir Parmar, Kurt Wolfe, Gene Whelan, Gerard F. Laniak, Mike Galvin, Jonathan L. Goodall

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Many modeling frameworks compartmentalize science via individual models that link sets of small components to create larger modeling workflows. Developing integrated watershed models increasingly requires coupling multidisciplinary, independent models, as well as collaboration between scientific communities, since component-based modeling can integrate models from different disciplines. Integrated Environmental Modeling (IEM) systems focus on transferring information between components by capturing a conceptual site model; establishing local metadata standards for input/output of models and databases; managing data flow between models and throughout the system; facilitating quality control of data exchanges (e.g., checking units, unit conversions, transfers between software languages); warning and error handling; …

Elicitation Of Farmers’ Information Sources And Use In Operational Decision Making, Charlotte Dayde, Stephane Couture, Roger Martin-Clouaire

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The current trend is towards increasing the amount of raw data regarding agricultural practices (e.g., through experimentation, availability of measurement devices, etc.). Consequently, the amount of information that farmers can use to make operational decisions is growing at an impressive rate. The issue of imbalance between the richness of available information and the ability of farmers to harness it in their decision-making process has received little attention so far. In this study, a descriptive approach based on interviews is adopted. It explores the origin (i.e., internal knowledge or external sources) and the nature of information used by farmers …

Webxtreme: A Simple Web Tool For Calculating Agroclimatic Indicators Of Extreme Events, Tommy Klein, Argyris Samourkasidis, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis, Gianni Bellocchi, Pierluigi Calanca

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Extreme events such as frost, drought or excessive heat occurring during a critical plant stage can cause extensive and sometimes irreversible damages to agricultural production. Tools for gauging the occurrence of extreme events can thus play an important role in the context of agricultural decision problems. Agroclimatic indicators offer simple means to discriminate between favourable and unfavourable conditions. Their evaluation can be supported by dedicated software tools, even though this typically requires local installation of the proposed solution. Here we present webXTREME, a new web-based tool to characterize the occurrence and intensity of extreme events in agriculture (available through www.modextreme.org/webxtreme, …

Assessing The Economic Value Of A Regional Air Quality Plan, Elisabetta Angelino, Claudio Carnevale, Roberta Gianfreda, Giorgio Guariso, Guido Lanzani, Guiseppe Maffeis, Enrico Turrini, Marialuisa Volta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

When developing an air quality plan, environmental authorities usually devise a number of individual actions, constituted by the application of both technical (end-of-pipe) and energy efficiency measures. They may range from the incentives to buy less polluting vehicles, to the enforcement of stricter rules on domestic heating. The assessment of the economic effectiveness for the society as a whole of the individual measures and of the overall plan requires a flexible support system able to quickly perform air quality impact evaluations on the specific area. One such system is RIAT+, a software package developed and tested during a series of …

Water Demand Forecasting With Autoflow© Using State-Space Approach, Khoi Anh Nguyen, Oz Sahin, Rodney Anthony Stewart, Hong Zhang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The authors have recently developed an intelligent application, Autoflow©, which is a powerful tool to autonomously categorise residential water consumption data into a registry of single and combined events. This tool was developed using data collected in several cities in Australia, and when applied on standalone properties, the achieved accuracy ranged from 86% and 96% in terms of number of correctly classified events. Taking advantage of the analysis results from Autoflow©, the aim of this study is to propose a short-term water demand forecasting model that not only allows water utilities to predict the overall …

Institutional Analysis For Flood Risk Reduction: A Coupled Agent-Based – Flood Model Method, Yared Abayneh Abebe, Amineh Ghorbani, Zoran Vojinovic, Igor Nikolic, Arlex Sanchez

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Flood risk results from flood hazard interacting with vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems. Though many associate flooding as just a natural phenomenon, it is also attributed to the economic, social, political, institutional and governance factors of affected areas. Institutions such as rules, laws, policies and norms that shape and constrain human interaction drive the hazard, vulnerability and exposure components of flood risk. In this study, we conduct an institutional analysis of rules, norms and strategies for flood risk reduction. Based on the institutional analysis, we build an agent-based model that is coupled with a hydrodynamic flood model. …

Towards Multifunctionality Of Landscapes – A Multi- Objective Land Use Optimization Framework For Exploring Interaction Between Ecosystem Services And Biodiversity, Michael Strauch, Anna Cord, Andrea Kaim, Carola Pätzold, Christian Schweitzer, Ralf Seppelt, Martin Volk

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The sustainable appropriation of resources and the design of multifunctional landscapes requires the finding of solutions that minimize trade-offs between contrasting goals of land use, ecosystem services and biodiversity. Substantial progress has been made in the model-based quantification of land-use effects on ecosystem services and biodiversity over the past years, but finding ‘optimal' land use patterns is still one of the challenges. Existing implementations of multi- objective land use optimization often have shortcomings or are not well designed for meeting multiple demands. For example, users may wish to include computationally extensive and complex process- based or statistical models to define …

Determining The Variability Of Population Exposure To Air Pollution While Taking Into Account Personal Mobility – A Case Study For The Uk, S. Reis, M Vieno, R. Beck, E. Carnell, D. Leaver

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The quantification of population level exposure to ambient air pollution is typically based on static population distributions inferred from the postcode of residence, and annual average concentrations of priority air pollutants at that location. Contemporary atmospheric chemistry transport models (ACTMs) are capable of providing air pollution concentration fields with high spatial and temporal resolution, for instance generating 1 km × 1 km gridded maps at hourly time steps. In addition, the 2011 UK Census has generated a novel population data product accounting for the location of the workplace, the so-called ‘workday population’ distribution, which accounts for the location of individuals …

Evaluating Model Structure Uncertainty By A New Approach To Sensitivity Analysis Utilizing Hydrological Signatures, Jiri Nossent, Mahyar Shafii, Willy Bauwens

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Model structure uncertainty is one of the most significant sources of uncertainty in traditional hydrological modelling and, above all, challenging to quantify. Structurally flexible models have recently become very popular in hydrology as they tend to allow a reduction of this uncertainty due to their flexibility in the mathematical representation of the hydrological response of a catchment. Reducing structural uncertainty within the flexible framework requires identifying (using top-down or bottom-up approaches) the most suitable (hydrologically consistent) model structure for a given watershed. To assess the models’ hydrological consistency, diagnostic model evaluation techniques are employed to test their capability of reproducing …

Semantic Data Integration From Multi Linked Model Framework, Binh Thanh Nguyen, Gregor Kiesewetter, Wolfgang Schöpp

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Model integration is becoming increasingly important due to the requirements for multi-scale and multi-objective assessment and decision making. Moreover, instead of incorporating all complex related information system models that are relevant for different related aspects into one super-model, a multi linked model framework has been proposed to extract data and output from multiple linked models into the coherent data warehouse, which respects the interdependency of data from different model as well as additional knowledge already contained in its existing data cubes.

In this paper, first the multi linked model framework is defined in a very formal manner. The mathematical abstract …

Advances In The Spatially Distributed Ages-W Model: Parallel Computation, Java Connection Framework (Jcf) Integration, And Streamflow/Nitrogen Dynamics Assessment, James Ascough Ii, Nathan P. Lighthart, Holm Kipka, Timothy R. Green, Gregory S. Mcmaster, Olaf David

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

AgroEcoSystem-Watershed (AgES-W) is a modular, Java-based spatially distributed model which implements hydrologic and water quality (H/WQ) simulation components under the Java Connection Framework (JCF) and the Object Modeling System (OMS) environmental modeling framework. AgES-W is implicitly scalable from field to regional scales, has a unique four-compartment surface-groundwater (vertical/lateral) routing scheme, and has recently been enhanced with various science components and tools for improved prediction of H/WQ response across large gauged and ungauged areas. Science component improvements include both new and enhanced modules for infiltration, water conveyance (e.g., ditches and diversions), conservation practice effects, and water table tracking. Recent AgES-W modeling …

A Conceptual Framework For An Agricultural Agent- Based Model With A Two-Level Social Component: Modeling Farmer Groups, Tatjana Kuznecova, Alexey A. Voinov

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In the last decade, collective actions within smallholder groups and cooperatives have been promoted by various development programs and projects. However, to develop appropriate programs and policies aimed at supporting cooperation among farmers, an approach may be required able to reflect the dynamics of an agricultural system resulting from decision-making and interactions between elements at different levels and scales.

In this study, we are focusing on the groups of smallholders organizing for collective crop production and/or marketing. Our aim is to provide an approach and a tool to gain a deeper insight in how cooperative groups emerge and perform under …

Application Of A Comprehensive Integrated Assessment Tool For The Brussels Capital Region, Peter Viaene, Enrico Turrini, Claudio Carnevale, Marialuisa Volta, Roberta Gianfreda, Guiseppe Maffeis, Priscilla Declerck, Olivier Brasseur, Pieter Valkering

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

While in general air quality has improved in Europe over the past decades, there are still problems with exceedances of ambient air quality limit values in many urban areas. To design efficient Air Quality Plans to face these problems, methodologies and tools are required to assess the effects of possible abatement measures on local air quality. One such tool is RIAT+ (www.riatplus.eu). In this contribution to IEMSs, we’ll present an application of the RIAT+ tool to the Brussels Capital Region (BCR). Specific challenges for this application are the limited area of the BCR and the constraint that only emission abatement …

Modelling With Stakeholders: A Systems Approach For Improved Environmental Decision Making Under Great Uncertainty, Edoardo Bertone, Oz Sahin, Russell Richards, Anne Roiko

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper an integrated participatory modelling approach is introduced for managing complex water resource systems under great uncertainty due to climatic and non-climatic factors. A number of case studies are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology. The approach includes a range of stakeholders’ engagement activities throughout the modelling process. The first step consists of participatory problem scoping and model conceptualisation, where the modellers work closely with the stakeholders to establish the scope of the work, identify the key variables, determine the system boundaries, and develop an initial conceptual model. Secondly, a structural analysis technique is used to …

Exploring Socio-Hydrological Dynamics With A Hybrid Hydrological Agent-Based Model, Anastasia Lobanova, Francesco Lamperti, Andrea Roventini, David Tabara, Stefan Liersch, Valentina Krysanova

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The rivers cannot be anymore analyzed as solely natural systems, because their hydrological dynamics is defined to a greater extent by strategic human decisions and management to meet social and economic water demands. The necessity of coupling local social dynamics with hydrological processes for river catchments analysis is around for a decade and more and more authors are speaking about the concept of human-natural systems and the ways to investigate their mutual effects dynamically. Following this idea, the studies on the impacts of climatic change on the hydrological systems has to incorporate the mutual effects of the socio-hydrological system to …

A New Framework For Global Sensitivity Analysis For Environmental Modelling, Saman Razavi, Hoshin Gupta, Amin Haghnegahdar, Razi Sheikholeslami

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Global sensitivity analysis (GSA) is an effective tool for understanding the role and functioning of different model factors (e.g., model parameters, forcings, and boundary and initial conditions) in generating the model response. GSA can be helpful to improve the credibility and utility of environmental systems models, as these models are continually growing in complexity and dimensionality with continuous advances in understanding and computing power. However, conventional approaches to GSA suffer from (1) an ambiguous characterization of sensitivity, and (2) poor computational efficiency, particularly as the problem dimension grows. Here, we identify several important sensitivity-related characteristics of response surfaces that must …

Hydrological Water Resources Assessment Of Cega-Eresma-Adaja Watershed System Using Swat Model, David A. Rivas, Angel De Miguel, Bárbara Willarts

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In the hydrological assessment of water bodies, modeling is a key fact in water management strategies of watersheds and serves as a tool for decision making considering environmental issues as the core of sustainable development in the region. In this direction, SWAT model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used to assess the water availability related with agricultural management in the watersheds of the tributary rivers Cega, Eresma and Adaja of Duero’s River in Spain both in the current and future climate change scenarios. To define the HRUs, land use maps from remote-sensing processes were used, extracting the agricultural uses …

Local And Regional Contributions To Nitrogen Dioxide, Tim Oxley, Helen Apsimon, Rosalind O’Driscoll

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

An important application of models is source apportionment, distinguishing the contribution of different sources to pollutant concentrations at critical locations - something which is difficult to deduce from measurements. As illustrated in this paper the UK Integrated Assessment Model (UKIAM) has been developed with this in mind, with a facility to produce a detailed breakdown of source contributions, indicating clearly the sources to be targeted for abatement and where uncertainties and sensitivity studies may be most important. “Impact factors”, defined as the change in concentration/exposure per unit reduction in emission for each source, are also useful in development of effective …

Towards Standard Variable Names For Environmental Chemistry: Semantic Mediation And Extensions To The Csdms Standard Names, Scott Dale Peckham

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

When a model needs to obtain the values of its input variables from another model or from a data file, it is necessary to reliably match the internal vocabularies of the coupled resources (e.g. models or data sets). In addition, spatial regridding, time interpolation and unit conversion may be required. In order to automate this semantic matching and variable exchange process in a model coupling framework, the internal vocabularies of the resources to be coupled must be mapped to a controlled vocabulary in a hub-and-spoke manner. The CSDMS Standard Names provide a domain-independent set of conventions and rules for constructing …

A Better Way To Build Plant Models, Dean Holzworth, Hamish Brown, Neil Huth

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The plant modelling framework (PMF) in the next generation of APSIM enables plant models to be constructed in a novel, more reliable and robust manner. It provides a library of small processes that can be aggregated into bigger processes which in turn can be combined into larger constructs, ultimately forming a plant model. The user interface supports a workflow that allows the model builder to collate and store experimental data, construct the model (by process aggregation), create and run simulations of the experimental data and graphically view the performance of the model. The model builder can then iteratively modify the …

Simulating Structural Change In Agriculture: Modelling Farming Households And Farm Succession, Christian Troost, Thomas Berger

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The majority of European farms are family farms. Farm succession, i.e. passing over the responsibility from farm owner and manager to their heir, is an important element of structural change in agriculture. We present a model implementation capturing farming household evolution in an agent- based model and explore the consequences of farm household composition and farm succession on agricultural production, investment and participation in agri-environmental policy schemes.

Modelling Combinations Of Economic Instruments To Eliminate Depletion In The Alto Guadalentín Aquifer (Se Spain), David Martínez-Granados, Javier Calatrava

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper analyses the cost-effectiveness of combining several policy instruments to address the problem of non-renewable pumping in the Alto Guadalentín aquifer in Southeast Spain, one of the most extreme cases of aquifer depletion in Europe. Their economic impact is assessed using a partial equilibrium non-linear mathematical programming model that maximises the farm net margin resulting from the use of the available water resources for irrigation in the area. Our results show that all the alternatives have significant economic impacts, although the future availability of desalinised resources would notably mitigate them, as farmers can substitute groundwater with desalinised water. …

A Dynamic Water Supply Portfolio Optimisation Approach, Michael G. Porter, Oz Sahin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper examines the future water supply situation in Adelaide, a relatively dry city in South Australia, in the driest populated continent on earth. Using the Systems Approach, we analyse a diversified strategy with a new portfolio mix of core bulk water: (i) rainfall independent desalinated water from the ocean and (ii) rainfall dependent water from catchments including the Mount Lofty Ranges (MLR) and water piped from the Murray‐Darling Basin (MDB) including via the Mannum‐Adelaide Pipeline. Our focus is on the quantity, indicative costs and risks of water supply, and associated augmentation choices and trade‐offs, over the next century to …

An Optimization Approach To Define Effective Air Quality Policies At Urban Scale, Helder Relvas, Ana Isabel Miranda, Joana Ferreira, Alexandra Monteiro, Enrico Turrini, Claudio Carnevale, Marialuisa Volta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The use of modeling to support environmental authorities to plan air quality control policies is now quite widespread in Europe. At the sub-national level, the most common approach is based on a scenario analysis which uses Chemical Transport Models (CTM) to assess the impact of emission reductions on air pollution concentrations. In this work, a multi-objective approach based on RIAT+ (Regional Integrated Assessment Tool) is used to cost-efficiently define air quality improvement policies. Internal costs (due to the implementation of emission reduction measures) and external benefit gains (due to the reduction of population exposure to air pollution levels) are worked …

How Modellers Frame Uncertainty In Scientific Publications: Review And Reflections, Joseph H.A. Guillaume, Casey Helgeson, Sondoss Elsawah, Anthony J. Jakeman, Matti Kummu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Uncertainty is recognised as an essential issue in environmental modelling. As modellers, we notably use a variety of tools and techniques within an analysis, for example related to uncertainty quantification and model validation. We also address uncertainty by how we present results. For example, experienced modellers are careful to distinguish robust conclusions from those that need further work, and the precision of quantitative results is tailored to their accuracy. In doing so, the modeller frames how uncertainty should be interpreted by their audience. This is an area which extends beyond modelling to fields such as philosophy of science, semantics, discourse …

Design And Implementation Of Integrated Surveillance And Modelling Systems For Climate- Sensitive Diseases, Michael C. Wimberly, Justin Davis, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Michael B. Hildreth, Yi Liu, Christopher L. Merkord

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climatic variations can have a multitude of impacts on human health, ranging from the direct impacts of extreme heat events to indirect effects on the vectors and hosts that transmit a multitude of infectious diseases. Infectious disease surveillance has traditionally focused on monitoring human cases, and in some instances tracking population sizes and infection rates of arthropod vectors and zoonotic hosts. For climate-sensitive diseases, there is potential to strengthen surveillance and obtain early indicators of future outbreaks by monitoring environmental risk factors using broad-scale sensor networks that include earth-observing satellites as well as ground stations. We highlight the opportunities and …

Modelling Urban Transition: A Case Of Rainwater Harvesting, Adam C. Castonguay, Christian Urich, Md Sayed Iftekhar, Ana Deletic

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Cities are increasingly exposed to extreme climate events such as floods and droughts. Land use change is also expected to reduce the availability of green spaces and intensify extreme heat events. Given these pressures on the quality of life of urban dwellers, there is a great need to improve the integrated management of water to enable sustainable development of rapidly growing cities and improve human well-being. A promising way to make urban communities more liveable is to invest in green water technologies, that is, decentralised and low-energy water supply, wastewater and stormwater solutions, to foster the transition to more sustainable …