Computer Engineering Commons^™

Blueprint Of A System Dynamics Model For Flanders, Jean-Luc De Kok, Peter Viaene, Stijn Vranckx, Karolien Vermeiren, Guy Engelen, Inge Mayeres, Leo De Nocker, Pieter Valkering, Wouter Wetzels, Marleen Van Steertegem, Bert De Vries

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The development of energy prices, immigration, and other exogenous factors which are beyond control of the authorities add to the uncertainties in long-term environmental planning. Prospective studies such as the Nature Outlook and Environment Outlook are carried out to assess the existing status of nature and the environment in Flanders, to support the mid- and long-term planning, and to ensure that the environmental targets set by the EU are met. The supporting analyses are based on modelling and data for a wide range of social-economic sectors and thematic domains, including demography, economics, energy, mobility, land-use change, environment, agriculture and food …

Calibration Of Hydrological Model In Data Scarce Tropical Basin, T. Alemayehu, A. Griensven, Willy Bauwens, Hoshin Gupta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This study presents an innovative method for calibrating hydrological models in data limited basins using historical mean annual flow duration curves (FDC) and spatially distributed remote sensing evapotranspiration (ET). FDCs retrieved from historical observations could provide crucial information about river flow regime and hence could be considered as an option, particularly when observations are not available and /or intermittent, during model calibration and validation. Additionally, remote sensing ET offers a consistent spatially distributed and temporally varying information for model parameterization. Therefore, in this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model for the Mara Basin (Kenya/Tanzania) has been calibrated …

System Dynamics And Bayesian Network Models For Vulnerability And Adaptation Assessment Of A Coastal Water Supply And Demand System, Thuc D. Phan, Oz Sahin, James Cr. Smart

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A coastal water supply and demand system is a highly uncertain and dynamically complex system. The degree of high uncertainty can arise from future climate change, population growth, water consumption trends, land use changes and socio-economic development, resulting in limited availability of empirical data. The effects of temporal and spatial interactions among such driving factors further contribute to the high dynamic complexity of coastal freshwater management. To effectively manage a coastal freshwater system with high levels of uncertainty and complexity, a participatory integrated System dynamics (SD) and Bayesian networks (BNs) modelling framework was suggested to assess the vulnerability and adaptation …

Pepic – Understanding The Impacts Of Different Pet Methods On Simulating Global Crop-Water Relations Of Maize, Wenfeng Liu, Hong Yang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Previous research investigating the impacts of different potential evapotranspiration (PET) estimation methods on crop modelling have mostly been conducted at the field level or regional scale. These investigations have focused on either yields or crop water use. A comprehensive assessment of impacts of different PET methods on crop-water relations has been absent on a global scale. Here, PEPIC, a grid-based EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) model within a Python environment, was developed to enhance our understanding of such impacts on global crop-water relations of maize at a spatial resolution of 30 arc minutes. The estimated national yields match well with …

Using An Object And Pattern Oriented Approach To Hydrological Modelling Teaching And Research, R.W. Vervoort, J.H.A. Guillaume, T.F.A Bishop, D. Kundu, F.F. Van Ogtrop

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Introducing hydrological modelling in undergraduate teaching is challenging, and some of this is related to the decline in STEM knowledge in students. Enabling students to confidently work with a range of hydrological models remains difficult, particularly if the goal is to make students understand the modelling process and model structures. The limited literature points to a number of educational tools that have been developed, falling into three classes: magical box fully developed GUIs with little insight into model operation; highly theoretical command line linear reservoir and unit hydrograph tools; and model tools focusing on one single model structure. Given the …

A Scientific Data Management Infrastructure For Environmental Monitoring And Modelling, Daniel Henzen, Matthias Mueller, Simon Jirka, Ivo Senner, Thomas Kaeseberg, Jin Zhang, Lars Bernard, Peter Krebs

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental projects often require the collaboration of researchers from different disciplines or domains in an interoperable context. With regard to data handling, most of these projects have an analogous workflow: phenomena are monitored, observation data are captured, (pre-) processed, exchanged, published, and finally disseminated among other scientists, practitioners and stakeholders. In many cases, each of the project partners implements these workflows separately and the integration of the distributed data sets happen in later project stages. In this paper, we present building blocks for research data infrastructure which covers the complete project cycle and supports data integration right from the beginning. …

Multi-Scale Adaptations And Vulnerability Transfer In An Artificial Society: From Sugarscape To Sugarscale, Bruno Bonté, Géraldine Abrami, Clara Therville, Louisa Kistemaker, François Bousquet, Olivier Barreteau, John M. Anderies

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In a context of global changes, coastal social-ecological systems are submitted to growing and combining pressures. To reduce their vulnerability, agents respond through adaptations that occurs at multiple scales (from individual to collective), leading to nested feedback loops with consequences that can be expected or not. Artificial societies are of great help to explore these complex and uncertain adaptation dynamics. Taking inspiration from Anderies et al. robustness framework, we modified Epstein and Axtell’ Sugarscape model to integrate a multi-scale perspective and explore vulnerability transfers following adaptation processes. Harvesters (users) are evolving in a cell-environment composed of spice and sugar (resources) …

Participatory Simulation Of Coastal Flooding: Building Social Learning On Prevention Measures With Decision-Makers, Nicolas Becu, Marion Amalric, Brice Anselme, Elise Beck, Xavier Bertin, Etienne Delay, Nathalie Long, Corinne Manson, Nicolas Marilleau, Cecilia Pignon-Mussaud, Frédéric Rousseaux

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Due to the increase in coastal flooding risk associated with climate change, there is a strong need to develop efficient and long term management strategies. In 2010, the storm Xynthia highlighted the limits of coastal flooding risk management in France. Besides a deficient alert system, it revealed a lack of risk culture. This problem was especially prevalent among local decision-makers who fail to take into account alternative prevention measures and adaptive strategies. In partnership with the local administration of Oléron Island – a sector strongly affected by storm Xynthia - we developed a participatory simulation model to foster social learning …

Including Discharge Uncertainties Into An Adaptable Objective Function For Rainfall - Runoff Model Calibration And Evaluation, Audrey Douinot, Hélène Roux, Denis Dartus

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Rainfall-runoff models are usually defined and assessed comparing simulation outputs to discharge measurements. The latter is calculated from stream stage measurements using stage-discharge relationships. This unavoidable step introduces uncertainties which can be significant especially during high flows. Unfortunately, most of the methods used to evaluate rainfall-runoff models neglect those data uncertainties and overestimate discharge measurement knowledge. The main objective of the paper is to integrate the real information content of discharge time series with a novel modelling errors formulation. Moreover, special attention is given to aggregating modelling errors into a score, such that the prediction accuracy level of each part …

Understanding Landscape Dynamics As Support Of Decision-Making Processes Using Dinamica-Ego Software, Vicente Guadalupe, Eleneide Doff Sotta, Valdenira Ferreira Santos, Leonardo José Gonçalves Aguiar, Lucieta Martorano

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes, and specially deforestation, are an expression of the interaction of economic, political and social factors in relation to the natural resources which may have profound effects on the functioning of the ecosystems. LULC models generally incorporate the most relevant elements of a coupled human-environment system and are important aids in decision-making processes in land use planning and management for sustainable development. This study aimed at analysing the main driving forces of deforestation in the North-eastern Amazon, as well as the context-specific factors that determined particular forest cover dynamics from 1985 to 2008, in …

Agrodb – Integration Of Database Management Systems With Crop Models, Alexandre Tagliari Lazzaretti, José Maurício C. Fernandes, Willingthon Pavan, Josué Toebe, Roberto Wiest

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The usefulness of crop simulation models for understanding and transferring agricultural technology is widely acknowledged. The decision support system for agrotechnology transfer (DSSAT) has been in use for the last 3 decades by researchers worldwide. The DSSAT-Cropping System Model (CSM) is a general model for simulating crop growth and development, as well as the soil and plant water, nitrogen phosphorus, and carbon dynamics. The DSSAT-CSM comprises a suite of crop simulation models, including the CSM-CROPSIM wheat. However, depending on the type and number of simulations, it is usually necessary to handle large volumes of input and output data. A database …

Implementing Urine Patches In A Dynamic Process- Based Simulation Model, V. O. Snow, R. Cichota, N. J. Hutchings, J. Vejlin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Grazing ruminants harvest N from pasture in the entire paddock and then deposit between 40 and 80% of the ingested N into urine patches that cover only 2-4% of the paddock area during a typical rotational grazing event. While previous work has shown the importance of explicitly modelling these patches of very high N deposition, most process-based simulation models assume uniform return of N to the soil. The very few models that explicitly model urine patches within the paddock do so at significant, perhaps prohibitive, computational cost. We sought a solution that would preserve the most important biophysical effects but …

Optimist: A Python Library For Water System Optimal Operation And Analysis Using Sddp, Luciano Raso, David Dorchies, Jan Kwakkel, Pierre Olivier Malaterre

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming (SDDP) is valuable tool in water management, employed for operational water management (i.e. suggesting effective release rules), and cost-benefit analysis evaluations. SDDP solves a multistage stochastic programming problem when uncertainty is a Markov process, and the system model is convex. SDDP can handle complex interconnected problem. Despite its potential, SDDP use is limited to few specialists.

We present Optimist, a python library for setting up an SDDP problem from components, i.e. elements and objectives, and their relationships. Elements presently developed are: streamflow input, reservoir, release, and river-reach. Objectives can be linear, used for energy …

Consideration Of Decision-Making Processes In Agent-Based Models Of Social-Ecological Systems, Pierre Mazzega, Christophe Sibertin-Blanc, Olivier Therond

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The potential of Agent-Based Modeling is now well-established to address natural resource management and policy issues in social-ecological systems where a number of biophysical and anthropic processes interact. The selection of anthropic processes to be considered in a model according to the research question is not easy, due to modelers' difficulty to objectify and identify these processes. The paper proposes some criteria to identify anthropic processes, decide which ones to discard or retain and how to implement the latter. It is illustrated by the analysis of the governance sub-model of the MAELIA platform dedicated to the integrated assessment and simulation …

A Combined Abm-Ca Approach For Analysing Effects Of Peer-Influence And Landowner Decision- Making On Urban Development Patterns, J. Koch, M. A. Dorning, S. M. Beck, G. M. Sanchez, A. Shashidharan, L. S. Smart, J. W. Smith, D. B. Van Berkel, Q. Zhang, R. K. Meentemeyer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In many parts of the U.S., population growth combined with continued demand for low-density housing is transforming the structure of peri-urban landscapes. Despite the substantial amount of privately owned land, the important decision-making roles that individual landowners play in shaping patterns of urbanization and landscape change is understudied. We introduce a data-informed simulation model developed to analyse the decision-making processes that determine spatial characteristics of fragmentation in peri-urban areas by combining the utility of a cellular automata urban growth algorithm (CA module), based on the FUTURES model, with an agent-based model (ABM module). The CA module is conceptualized as a …

Integrating Participation And Modelling To Support Natural Hazard Mitigation Planning, Hedwig Van Delden, Graeme A. Riddell, Roel Vanhout, Jeffrey P. Newman, Aaron C. Zecchin, Holger R. Maier, Graeme C. Dandy

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Natural hazard mitigation planning is a multi-facetted problem. Besides understanding the risk of various hazards at present, one also needs to understand how the probability of occurrence and the consequences change over time, what the impact of potential mitigation measures is on reducing the risks, and what the side effects of hazard mitigation options are on adjoining disciplines. Consequently, dealing with hazard mitigation encompasses various aspects that require different support techniques. In order to ensure consistency and complementarity these techniques should be used as a closely linked tool set. This paper proposes such a tool set or framework. It uses …

Land Use Change And Agricultural Production Of A Central European Region Expected Until 2050, Joerg A. Priess, Christian Hoyer, Greta Jäckel, Sebastian Pomm, Eva Lang, Christian Schweitzer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Based on a participatory scenario process, we assessed potential land-use trajectories for Central Germany until 2050. The objective was to quantify consequences of large scale drivers such as climate change, as well as regional drivers such as population decline, and changes in regional preferences e.g. concerning bioenergy production, organic agriculture or reforestation as considered by regional stakeholders and scientists during scenario development. Stakeholders were covering a broad range of state and regional scale private and public bodies and NGOs. The spatially explicit and cellular automata based land use model SITE was used to simulate land use change scenarios until 2050. …

Scientific Research Documentation - An Information Server For The National Park Hunsrück-Hochwald, Peter Fischer-Stabel, Micheal Mattern

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Within the world network of nature reserves, a national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Beside it´s high value for nature and biodiversity, national parks are serving as sites for research, environmental monitoring, education and training. In order to ensure a long-lasting, central and efficient access to the literature and data on such a nature reserve for all scientists from the respective institutions, a research information portal was established for the National Park Hunsrück-Hochwald. Based on a user requirements analysis, a client-server architecture using open source components was set up. Core modules are a metadata-management component and …

M3o: A Matlab Toolbox For Designing Multi-Objective Optimal Operations Of Water Reservoir Systems, M. Giuliani, Y. Li, A. Cominola, S. Denaro, E. Mason, A. Castelleti

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water reservoir operations have huge potential for contributing positively to the development of different sectors, as well as for reducing the vulnerabilities of water systems caused by changing hydro-climatic and socio-economic forcing. Despite the problem of optimally designing operating policies for water storages has been extensively studied, many state-of-the-art methods are generally distributed as commercial software, thus constraining the possibility of exploring or modifying these tools for customized applications. This motivates the search for advanced, flexible, and open tools supporting the design of operating policies capable of meeting the multiple competing demands associated to the operations of water storages. In …

Exploration Of The Long Term Sustainability Of The French Risk Management, Frédéric Grelot, Bruno Bonté, Zhongyang Fang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Public flood risk management (FRM) in France, as in other countries like USA, Great Britain, relies on a combination of tools dealing with the negative consequences of flood. Spatial scale of those tools differs: insurance is defined and managed at national scale, land use regulation is defined at national scale but implemented at local scale, protection against flood may be implemented at local or even individual scales. The objective of this communication is to build a model for the analysis of the sustainability of the French FRM. For this, we used a simple but contextualized agent-based model (Cat-Nat ABM).

In …

Designing Mixed Fruit-Vegetable Cropping Systems By Integer Quadratic Programming, Sara Maqrot, Simon De Givry, Gauthier Quesnel, Marc Tchamitchian

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Mixed fruit-vegetable cropping systems (MFVCS) are a promising way of ensuring environmentally sustainable agricultural production systems in response to the challenge of being able to fulfill local market requirements. Indeed, they combine productions and they also make a better use of biodiversity. These agroforestry systems are based on a complex set of interactions modifying the utilization of light, water and nutrients. Thus, designing such a system must optimize the use of these resources, by maximizing positive interactions (facilitation) and minimizing negative ones (competition). To attain these objectives, the system's design has to include the spatial and temporal dimensions of these …

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 …

An Integrated Modelling Approach To Climate Change And Malaria Vulnerability Assessments, Esther Achieng Onyango, Oz Sahin, Cordia Chu, Brendan Mackey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Malaria is one of the key research concerns in climate change-health relationships. Numerous risk assessments and modelling studies providing evidence that the transmission range of malaria will expand with rising temperatures resulting in adverse impacts on vulnerable communities. This risk is significant in East Africa whereby current research shows an expansion of malaria into the highland areas due to changes in temperature and rainfall. While there exist multiple lines of evidence for the influence of climate change on malaria and the risk posed to vulnerable communities, there is insufficient understanding of the complexity of factors influencing the spread of the …

Natural Resource Use In Smallholder Environments – Model Tailoring To Reach The Right People, Carsten Marohn, Georg Cadisch

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Our contribution describes challenges encountered during the development of the Land Use Change Impact Assessment tool (LUCIA) from a pure research instrument to a more applied tool and possible ways forward. LUCIA is a dynamic, spatially explicit landscape-scale model. Its scope is assessing impacts of land use change and management on soil productivity and fertility, biomass production, watershed functions and environmental services in small catchments emphasizing processes connecting different parts of landscapes. Over time the original target group – researchers – expanded to farmers, students and authorities. Main motivations for model use included a) plot level yield estimates, fertiliser recommendations; …

A Java Binary Tree Data Structure For Environmental Modelling, Francesco Serafin, Marialaura Bancheri, Riccardo Rigon, Olaf David

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The modelling of natural phenomena to solve a wide range of problems has increased in popularity in the last three decades. However, as the size and complexity of the source code of environmental models has grown, issues related to maintainability and further development have arisen. In this work, we show an innovative way to simplify the reuse and development of new models, decoupling the physics of the processes from the schematization of information flow and feedback. Each physical process (for instance, evapotranspiration or runoff production) might be implemented as a stand alone component for a framework like OMS v3, which …

A Novel Approach To Parameterizing Utility Functions For Agent-Based Market Models Of Resource Choice, Dawn Parker, Yu Huang, Robert Babin, Jeff Casello, Xiongbing Jin, Xinyue Pi, Veronica Sullivan

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Theoretical economic choice models posit that agents make resource allocation decisions based on the “utility,” or subjective satisfaction that they receive from alternative choices. Utility allows agents to rank choices and potentially apply optimization algorithms to these choices. Utility, however, is not measurable in an empirical context. Thus, modelers alternatively estimate linear empirical functions that associate factors with observed choices and/or market prices. While these linear functions can include factors that reflect multiple social and natural dimensions of decision making, they are not suitable for optimization (even using assumptions of bounded rationality) or for representing synergies and substitutability between factors. …

Evaluation Of Future Climate Change Impact On Aquatic Ecosystem And Health Using Lm3-Tan Model In South Korea, Jin Wan Lee, Chung Gil Jung, So Ra Ahn, Seong Joon Kim

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climate change could be one of the main threats faced by aquatic ecosystems and freshwater biodiversity. Recently, LM3-TAN (Land Model 3 Terrestrial and Aquatic Nitrogen) land-based physical, biological, chemical processes model for South Korea was developed to assess the combined effects of direct human influences and future climate change on Aquatic Nitrogen cycling by Korea NIEL (National Institute of Environmental Research). The objective of this study is to analyse the relationship between stream water quality, water temperature, and Trophic Diatom Index (TDI) and Benthic Macroinvertebrate Index (BMI) determined by stream water quality factors. The TDI and BMI monitored 2 times …

Supporting Wildlife Conservation By Modelling The Effectiveness Of Community-Led Poacher Mitigation, Marit E. Kragt, Eric J. Hay, Micheal Renton

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Illegal hunting and poaching are severely threatening biodiversity in Southeast Asia, especially those species that are rare or threatened. Management strategies to address this poaching problem include wildlife patrols that collect and remove wire snares. While studies exist that predict the impact of poaching on biodiversity loss, there are few studies that evaluate the effectiveness of policy strategies. We present a model that predicts how community-led poaching mitigation patrols could help wildlife conservation the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR). The results show that, without intervention, nearly all species will be poached to local extinction over the next 10 years. We …

Simulating Regional-Scale Soil Nitrous Oxide Emissions In Scotland, Vasileios Myrgiotis, Cairistiona F. E. Topp, Robert M. Rees, Mathew Williams

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Nitrous oxide (N2O) is a major greenhouse gas whose largest anthropogenic source is the addition of nitrogenous fertilisers to cultivated soils. The development and application of mechanistic models of soil biogeochemistry contributes significantly to the effort to understand and quantify those N2O fluxes. Soil biogeochemistry models are complex and can be particularly difficult to evaluate because N2O measurements are usually sporadic and contain large uncertainties. Therefore, large-scale simulations with such models can be demanding. The majority of model-based studies focus on small spatial scales (i.e. field, catchment) despite the fact that simulations at larger scales are those that offer more …

Re-Examining The Abm Empirical Toolkit In A World Of Big (Behavioral) Data, Andrew Bell

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Robinson et al. (2007) identify five key modes of informing agent-based models (ABM): surveys, participant observation, field and lab experiments, companion modeling, and remotely-sensed data. Janssen and Ostrom (2006) hone in on some of the key dimensions that differentiate these approaches and the kinds of inferences that can be made from them, including the depth of capturing cognitive processes, the number of repeated observations made, and the size of the sample. A decade of technological change has occurred since these reviews were prepared, with mobile technologies in particular breaking down barriers to the scale and scope with which behavioral data …