Computer Engineering Commons^™

Fire-Spotting Modelling And Parametrisation For Wild-Land Fires, Inderpreet Kaur, Gianni Pagnini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This article describes a mathematical formulation for simulating the effects of firebrands on the propagation of the wild-land fires. Among the different approaches available in literature, this formulation is defined in a way to provide a versatile approach for application to operational wildfire models. Most of the operational wildfire models like WRF-SFIRE and ForeFire model only the evolution of the fire-line according to the definition of the rate of spread, fuel characterisation and the average fire properties and concurrent atmospheric conditions. But this information is not enough to simulate the effects of turbulence and fire-spotting. The formulation presented here can …

A Generator Of Landuse Application For Complex And Heterogeneous Agricultural Practices, Odile Leccia-Phelpin, Jean-Marie Lescot, Françoise Vernier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Non-point source pollution from agriculture has become a major concern for water managers and institutional stakeholders. To reduce diffuse pollution, agricultural conservation measures are widely used with efficiency. On non-monitored territories environmental modelling enables the assessment of their long term impacts on water and soils and to evaluate land-use change scenarios. We developed an innovative Generator of Landuse (GenLU) application in order to build up multi-year spatial crop successions from identified crop rotations with their related management schedule s. GenLU can be used solely for generating landuse or coupled with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model so as …

Water Supply System Classification For Water Quality Improvement, Bruno Melo Brentan, Gustavo Meirelles Lima, Edevar Luvizotto Junior, Joaquín Izquierdo, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Universal access to drinkable water is a constitutional right guaranteed in Brazil. However, not all cities in this country are able to supply the population with the expected quality. Important actions should be taken to improve the supply of drinkable water. To define a strategic plan for this purpose, classification tools can facilitate the design of plans, by grouping cities with similar quality conditions. During the last decades, neural network approaches have been used in environmental models, allowing more accurate representation of some complex systems. This work proposes the use of self-organizing maps (SOM’s) coupled with the k-means algorithm …

Optimal Land Use?! – A Review On Optimization Techniques Used In Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Andrea Kaim, Anna Cord, Martin Volk

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agriculture, forest management, conservation planning and other related disciplines have specific land use demands, and thus different perspectives on how land should be used in an “optimal way”. One way to solve arising land use conflicts is employing the ecosystem services concept together with methods from the field of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Especially optimization techniques provide the possibility to include socio-economic and ecological aspects as well as the protection of biodiversity. In this study, we give an overview of these methods, focusing especially on their application in agricultural areas. We explore their abilities for the identification of ecosystem service …

Data-Driven Wildfire Behaviour Modelling: Application Of Firefly To Field-Scale Grassland Controlled Burns, M. C. Rochoux, C. Zhang, D. Lucor, S. Ricci, A. Trouve

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Assessing epistemic uncertainties is now considered as a milestone for improving numerical predictions of a dynamically evolving system. The objective of this project is to demonstrate the benefits of data assimilation combined with sensor observations of the fire front position to both quantify and reduce the uncertainties in wildfire behaviour forecasting capability. The challenges found on the route to modelling wildfire behaviour are two-fold. There is the modelling challenge associated with providing accurate representations of the multi-scale multi-physics processes governing wildfire dynamics. There is also the data challenge associated with providing accurate estimates of the environmental conditions (biomass moisture, near-surface …

Atlas: A Tool To Model Spatial-Temporal Dynamics Of Processes Influencing Ecosystem Services, Hugo Thierry, Aude Vialatte, Claude Monteil, Annie Ouin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Biodiversity provides various benefits to humankind throughout what is defined as ecosystem services. Within a specific ecosystem, a wide range of ecosystem services can be identified. During the past decades, human intervention has aimed to increase some services such as food production through agricultural intensification, at the expense of other services such as water regulation. Mapping, evaluating and quantifying each of these ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to crop production could help to increase the multi-functionality of agricultural landscapes. In this context, we developed a spatially-explicit model called ATLAS (AgriculTural LandscApe Simulator). ATLA …

Understanding The Relationships Between Sanitation And Health In Nicaragua And Honduras, Through Data Mining Tools, Ginevra Marina Lazerini, Josep Nualart, Sergio Ruiz-Cayuela, Maialen Urbina, Miquel Sànchez Marrè, Karina Gibert

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The aim of this work is to analyze water and sanitation supply data from Nicaragua and Honduras by using different data mining tools. The data has been provided by SIASAR (Rural Water and Sanitation Information System), which is a water and sanitation management and information platform created through the joint effort of different Central American Governments and the World Bank. In the study data from a survey performed in all the rural communities in Nicaragua and in a sample of the rural communities in Honduras from 2012 to 2015 is analyzed. Database contains 10206 communities described by 23 numerical variables …

Resilience Of Punta S’Aliga Barrier Beach To Storm Impacts, Andrea Sulis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Beach and dune provide natural defense against erosion and flooding, and associated mitigation measures are classical coastal engineering problems studied by many researchers. Winter storms cause severe erosion leading to dune breaching and then flooding of the hinterland areas. Resiliency of a barrier beach depends on the ability of the dune (resistor) to recover in height and extent following storms. Whereas erosion of the beach and dune occurs over hours and days, it can be years to decades before the beach and dune are able to recover to their pre-storm state. In the last two decades, numerical modelling methods have …

The Economics Of Agricultural Water Productivity In The Blue Nile, Imeshi Weerasinghe, James Booker, Wim Bastiaanssen, Lisa-Marie Rebelo, Ann Van Griensven

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agricultural Water Productivity (AWP) is often simplified as the ‘crop per drop’, described as the output in terms of yield or biomass per unit of water input. This purely physical measure of Water Productivity (WP) using only a single factor input (water) does not consider: (1) the level of other inputs used in conjunction with water, (2) the opportunity cost of water as an input, (3) the value of the output and (4) the costs of production for different crops. This study presents a justification and methodology for incorporating these factors into WP indicators. The application of these extensions to …

E3.Pt – An E3 Portabledyme Model For Portugal, Anett Großmann, Frank Hohmann

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

E3 models are environmentally extended economic models. They are extensively used for impact assessment of energy, climate and resource policies at national and international level. E3 models have proven to be suitable tools for quantifying effects on the economy, environment and energy system. Usually, the structure and documentation of such models are only accessible by the model builders. They are facing the allegation to be a "black box" meaning that only their creators are able to operate and fully understand the model system. Decision makers are often only engaged at the end of the model building process to discuss the …

A Markov Decision Process Model To Compare Ecosystem Services Provided By Agricultural Landscapes, Sabrina Gaba, Nathalie Peyrard, Régis Sabbadin, Julia Radoszyckic

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

One current challenge in managing agricultural landscapes, is to reach a trade-off between provision of food and biodiversity conservation. Two extreme land-use strategies, land sharing and land sparing, are often discussed. The design of decision rules for allocating crops and lands for biodiversity conservation (e.g. grasslands) can be formalized as an optimization problem. However the target to optimize, representing the trade-off between ecosystem services (ES) can be complex to model since ES are usually not defined on comparable scales and may rely on different sides of biodiversity. Here, we will investigate how landscape composition and structure affect the magnitude of …

Sectorization Of Intermittent Water Supply Networks Based On Graph Theory And Clustering Techniques, Amilkar E. Ilaya-Ayza, David Ayala-Cabrera, Joaquín Izquierdo, Enrique Campbell, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Intermittent water supply is the form of access to water in many countries around the world. It is very common that design, operation, maintenance and, in general, decision-making in these systems are performed using tools originally developed for systems with continuous supply, which are not adequate. However, these tools can be reasonably applied to network sectorization of intermittent supply networks. We propose a sectorization methodology for networks that do not have the possibility of working with continuous supply. In addition, to ensure sufficient pressure, sector design must guarantee equity in the supply. Furthermore, it is not enough to establish sector …

A Mathematical Model For Ghg From Sb-Mbr: Calibration By An Innovative Protocol, Giorgio Mannina, Alida Cosenza

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A mathematical model to quantify greenhouse gases (GHG) (carbon dioxide, CO₂ and nitrous oxide, N₂O) for a membrane bioreactor (MBR) is presented. The model has been applied to a pilot plant with a pre-denitrification MBR scheme. The pilot plant was cyclically filled with real saline wastewater according to the fill-draw-batch operation. The model was calibrated by adopting a specific protocol based on extensive field dataset. Standardised Regression Coefficient (SRC) method was adopted to select the most influential model factors to be calibrated. Results related to SRC method show that among the important model factors a key role …

A Framework For Decision-Making In Cases Of Invasive Species, Peter A. Khaiter, Marina G. Erechtchoukova, Sina Roushan

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Invasion of nonindigenous species is one of the most pressing global challenges, causing substantial environmental, economic and social harm. Invasion of alien species alters the composition, structure and functioning of invaded ecosystems as well as the services they generated before the invasion. Decisions about the management of invasive cases are inherently difficult because of the multifactorial and multiattribute scope of the problem. In particular, the resilience limits of invaded ecosystems to fully recover original, pre-invaded states remain unclear. To facilitate management efforts, decision-makers and environmental practitioners require a framework integrating relevant knowledge and acting as a supporting expert system. The …

Cool Farm Tool (Cft) Water: Novel Tool For Water Resource Assessment On Field Scale, Benjamin Kayatz, Gabriele Baroni, Benjamin Kuster, Stefan Lüdtke, Daniella Malin, Richard Heathcote, Carl Von Tonder, Martin Wattenbach

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

At the global scale over 70 % of all fresh water used is consumed by the agricultural sector. For this reason a sustainable water management at the basin level often requires the assessment of water that is used for crop production. In this context, the characterization of green and blue water footprint showed to be a useful and efficient approach to support analysis and decisions.

However determining the water footprint is cumbersome and often linked to additional data acquisition efforts. Furthermore the water footprint is often not revealing the basin impact of crop production. To overcome these limitations we developed …

Small Farms Dams Modelling In Highly Anthropized Basins: Case Of The Garonne Catchment In The South-West Of France, François Moussu, Pierre Le Moigne, Pierre Le Cointe, Camille Truche, Olivier Therond, Eric Martin, Florence Habets

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

One of the aims of the REGARD project is to evaluate the influence of human activities in the modelling of water resources in the South-West of France, at the scale of the Garonne Watershed (~55 000 km²). Since 2009 the French government introduced a new regulation of agricultural water withdrawals, to avoid regular crisis due to water resources issues.Our approach consists in accounting for small farm dams in the Safran-Isba-Modcou (SIM) model and to evaluate their impact on river discharges. Several scenarios with different volume capacities, filling catchment sizes and filling periods were tested to assess how the …

Bayesian Estimation Of Source Term Of Atmospheric Radiation Release With Interval Prior, O. Tichý, V. Šmídl, R. Hofman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Detection of release of an atmospheric pollutant is a problem of interest in environmental sciences. We are concerned with estimation of unknown source term of the release. Formally, the problem is formulated as a linear model where measurements are explained using source-receptor- sensitivity matrix obtained from atmospheric transport model and source term vector which has to be estimated. Specifically, we estimate the release of radioactivity from measurements of gamma dose rate (GDR). The problem of isolation of activity of individual nuclides is poorly conditioned. We propose a probabilistic model with the prior information on intervals of nuclide ratios. The model …

A Simulation Platform To Assess Forest Landscape Resilience, Werner Rammer, Rupert Seidl

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Forest ecosystems suffer increasingly from pressures such as anthropogenic climatic change, while at the same time being subject to an increasing societal demand for ecosystem services. In addition to direct climate effects on tree growth and regeneration recent research suggests that climate-induced changes in disturbance regimes will likely increase the volatility of future forest trajectories. Addressing these challenges requires a coupled human and natural systems perspective, as most of Europe’s forests are heavily influenced by management, and forests are a crucial component in the emerging bioeconomy. Methodologically, assessments of the long-term socio-ecological resilience of forest ecosystems require approaches that combine …

Advanced Clustering To Integrate Spatial Socio-Ecological Components In Decision-Making: A Case Study On Sustainable Agriculture, Stéphane Bourrelly, Antonino Marvuglia, Ian Vázquez-Rowe

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Accounting for the direct and indirect role of ecosystem services (ES) in supporting human activities is a priority among governmental targets to develop strategies of impact mitigation with the mutual effect of increasing human well-being. Although a great deal of research is currently being done on ES assessment, the volume of available data and the complexity of mechanisms make the decision-making process difficult. We highlight the strengths of unsupervised clustering for handling geographic multidimensional datasets. We explain why the outputs, both in qualitative and quantitative form, can help stakeholders to conceive sustainable policies. At the same time, we point out …

Fuzzy Vs Neural Network Models For Environmental Decision Support System Implementation Aiming To Standardise The Multiparametric Decision In A Drinking Water Plant With Electrodialysis Reversal, Montse Dalmau, Hèctor Monclús, Joan Espasa, Natasa Atanasova, Manel Poch, Pere Emiliano, Oriol Capdevila, Santiago González, Fernando Valero

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The development of an environmental decision support system (EDSS) by means of two different aims to support the operators’ decisions in the drinking water treatment plant (DWTP), equipped with the biggest electrodialysis reversal (EDR) in the world has been tested. A fuzzy artificial neural network model (fuzzy) and an artificial neural network (ANN) have been compared for optimizing the decision: how to manage water blending ratios from EDR and conventional treatment of the drinking water plant, evaluating Llobregat River characteristics (inlet DWTP), current operating conditions of DWTP, weather conditions and distribution requirements on-line. This tool has been tested among 4,5 …

Modelling Small Agricultural Dams Dynamics Into The Maelia Multi-Agent Platform, Romain Lardy, Camille Truche, Olivier Therond

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In France, during the three last decades farmers built numerous small dams to have alternative resources for irrigation. In water deficit situations, one major question of the debate is the cumulative effect at watershed and river basin levels of small water dams on stream flows during the low flow period. This paper presents a new modelling framework to simulate hydrology and cumulative effect of small agricultural dams at river basin level that was implemented in the multi-agent modelling and simulation MAELIA platform. This modelling framework is based on the distinction of four types of small dams: connected to groundwater; disconnected …

A Multi-Disciplinary Procedure To Ascertain Biofilm Formation In Drinking Water Pipes, Eva Ramos-Martinez, Manuel Herrera, Joaquín Izquierdo, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Biofilm development in drinking water distribution systems (DWDSs) is a real problem negatively affecting service and water quality, and, thus, the satisfaction of the final consumers. It is the direct and indirect responsible for many of the DWDSs’ problems, and a lot of resources are invested to mitigate its effects. Addressing this problem has been a concern of researchers and DWDS managers for years. However, it is only recently that both technology and data have been available to support the new approach presented in this work. Our proposal is based on the combination of various existing data sets from similar …

Modelling Lifestyle And Energy Footprint In Europe’S “Oil Capital” Using An Agent-Based Model, Jiagi Ge, Gary Polhill, Tony Craig, Nan Liu, Deborah Roberts

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The economy of Aberdeen, UK is heavily concentrated in the North Sea oil and gas industry. Until recently, it had enjoyed steady economic growth and low unemployment rate. However, since the oil price plummeted in the end of 2014, the local economy has been through tremendous turmoil. This paper develops an agent-based model of the economic, social and urban systems of Aberdeen to study the impact of economic conditions on residential mobility and urban energy footprint. We develop a dynamic and spatially-explicit agent-based model that covers four important aspects of life: economy and employment, housing, transport and social infrastructure. Through …

The Framework And Application Of Vulnerability Assessment Of Reclaimed Land To Typhoon Storm Surge Inundation, Shuyun Dong, Wayne J. Stephenson, Sarah Wakes, Zhongyuan Chen, Jianzhong Ge

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The coastal area has naturally attractive to population and industry due to its convenient geographical location and abundant resources. While the coastal area provides geographical advantages and resources for urban development, it also experiencing a dramatically growing vulnerability to natural hazards. For coastal mega-cities like Shanghai, typhoon storm surge presents a significant threat to both infrastructure and populations with relatively high vulnerability. Another fact about Shanghai coastal area is that the reclamation land has grown substantially due to the huge demand of land for further urban development. On the one hand, the reclamation land can alleviate the continuous growth of …

Simulating Spatial Changes In Vegetation-Livestock Interactions Under Different Landscape Structures: A Multi-Agent System Applied To Agro-Pastoral Territories, Mamadou Sané, Jonathan Vayssières, Myriam Grillot, Alassane Bah, Alexandre Ickowicz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Free-range and common-grazing ruminants play a major role in the functioning and the provision of ecosystem services by agro- and silvo-pastoral ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa. To assess how landscape structure affects the nature of environment-herd-services interactions, this paper describes a Multi-Agent System (MAS) that simulates daily herd movements in a dynamic environment. The model is used to study how the overall productivity of an agricultural territory is affected by the spatial organization of its different landscape units. The originality of this model lies in fine representation, in hourly time steps, of a herd’s movements and activities over the seasons depending …

Comparison Of The Offline And The Online Bias Correction Of The Wrf-Eurad In Porto, Portugal, K. I. Hoi, K. V. Yuen, K. M. Mok, A. I. Miranda, I. Ribeiro

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This study compared two types of (offline vs. online) bias correction models applied to correct the mismatch between the predicted daily averaged PM₁₀ concentration by the deterministic air quality forecasting system WRF-EURAD and the measured concentration at the air quality monitoring station in Porto, Portugal. The WRF-EURAD is a Eulerian system consisting of a Weather Research Forecasting (WRF) model and a European Air Pollution Dispersion (EURAD) model. Both bias correction models were linear statistical models developed with the same set of input variables. The major difference between the online or the offline models is the adaptiveness. While the coefficients …

Actor-Based System Dynamics Modelling Of Win-Win Climate Mitigation Options, Dmitry V. Kovalevsky, Klaus Hasselmann

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The actor-based system dynamics approach to Integrated Assessment modelling (IAM), seen as further development of ‘traditional’ system dynamics economic modelling, however with a stronger emphasis on describing the decision making of key aggregate economics actors, is a promising methodology for developing the comprehensive IAMs of next generations. The present paper is focused on application of actor-based system dynamics models to identification and assessment of win-win opportunities of climate mitigation policies. Modelling results outlined suggest that in a multi-country world properly designed climate mitigation policies can unite rather than divide different nations, therefore putting under question the ‘juggernaut’ of much discussed …

Targeting Rebates In The Water-Energy Nexus, Alvar Escriva-Bou, Manuel Pulido-Velazquez, Jay R. Lund

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water conservation is often the most cost effective source of additional water supply for water stressed regions to maintain supply reliability with increasing population and/or demands, or shorter-term droughts. In previous research we demonstrated how including energy savings of conserved water can increase willingness to adopt conservation measures, at the same time that increases energy and GHG emissions savings. But the capacity to save water, energy and GHG emissions depends fundamentally in the economic benefits for customers and utilities.

Utilities have traditionally used rebates, subsidies or incentives to enhance water conservation. But the economic benefits originated by these rebates depend …

A New Gpr Image Analysis Proposal Based On A Multi-Agent Approach And Properties Of Groups – Towards Automatic Interpretations, David Ayala-Cabreraa, Manuel Herrera, Joaquin Izquierdo, Rafael Pérez-García, Olivier Piller

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper proposes a new methodology to analyze images from subsoil surveys obtained by using ground penetrating radar (GPR) as a non-destructive method. The aim is to advance towards automatic GPR image interpretations. The main idea is to promote the inclusion of these non- destructive technologies as support in technical management in large-scale systems such as water distribution systems (WDSs). The methodology proposed in this paper uses pre-processing techniques based on a multi-agent approach and analysis of the properties of the obtained groups. In addition, a first classification (via perceptron) of the selected property in the groups is performed. The …

Development And Evaluation Of A Parsimonious Agro-Hydrological Model To Assess Agricultural Managements Strategies For Climate Change Adaptation, H. Van Gaelen, E. Vanuytrecht, P. Willems, J. Diels, D. Raes

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

While simple crop and hydrological models are limited with respect to the number and accuracy of the processes they incorporate, complex models have high demand for data. Due to these limitations, there is a need for new agro-hydrological models that can simulate the impact of agronomic and environmental changes on both crop productivity and water availability in agricultural catchments, without vast data requirements for model input and calibration. AquaCrop-Hydro was developed to fill the need for a such a parsimonious, physically sound and widely applicable agro- hydrological model. The model was developed by linking the process-based AquaCrop crop water productivity …