Hydraulic Engineering Commons^™

Testing Site-Specific Parameterizations Of Longwave Radiation Integrated In A Gis-Based Hydrological Model, Giuseppe Formetta, Olaf David, Riccardo Rigon

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Incoming (Rli) and outgoing (Rlo) longwave atmospheric radiation are very important components of the global radiation balance. They influence many hydrological processes such as evapotranspiration, soil-surface temperature, energy balance, and snowmelt. Field measures of Rli and Rlo are extremely rare except for a few sites and experimental watersheds. Many parameterization schemes were proposed in order to model Rli and Rlo by using easily available meteorological observations such as air temperature, relative humidity, incoming solar radiation and cloud cover.

In this work 10 methods of parameterizing clear sky radiation for the estimation of Rli and Rlo were integrated in the GIS …

Trade-Offs Of Biogas Production: Comparing Crop Ro­Tations Under Different Climate Scenarios, Sven Lautenbach, Martin Volk, Micheal Strauch, Gerald Whittaker, Ralf Seppelt

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

While increasing biofuel production is worldwide on the political agenda, concerns about the involved trade-offs are on the rise. However, the quantification of these trade-offs is typically based on the comparison of a limited number of plausible alternatives. We extended the analysis by applying a multi-objective genetic algorithm to estimate the set of Pareto optimal solutions which de­scribe the trade-offs between the objectives. The Pareto solutions represent the (estimated) best op­tions given the model and the specified control options. Our analysis studied food and fodder based crop rotations and two alternative biogas crop production schemes: a corn based production scheme …

Integrated Modelling Of Social-Ecological Systems: The Maelia High-Resolution Multi-Agent Platform To Deal With Water Scarcity Problems, Olivier Therond, Christophe Sibertin-Blanc, Romain Lardy, Benoit Gaudou, Maud Balestrat, Yi Hong, Thomas Louail, Van Bai Nguyen, David Panzoli, José-Miguel Sanchez-Perez, Sabine Sauvage, Patrick Taillandier, Maroussia Vavasseur, Pierre Mazzega

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Sustainable water resource management is typical of environmental management problems emerging from complex social-ecological systems. It deeply depends upon water user strategies, land use management and water governance systems. MAELIA, a "policy issue" modelling platform, allows performing integrated assessment at watershed level of a wide range of scenarios regarding water and land use management strategies in combination with global changes. It has been developed through a strong analysis of different French water management situations and an inductive modelling process. It allows representing dynamic interactions between human activities (farming practices), ecological processes (hydrology and crop growth), and governance systems (water regulations …

Qualitative Reasoning Models To Summarize And Compare Metapopulation Theories, Isabella Gontijo Sá-Leão, Adriano Souza, Fernando Goulart, Paulo Salles

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A better understanding of population dynamics is needed in the face of accelerating changes and modifications of natural landscapes. Qualitative Reasoning based models have been considered as a tool for integration and exploration of conceptual knowledge in ecological systems and population dynamics. The objective of the present work is to develop a set of qualitative models in order to capture, formalize, summarize, and compare knowledge about different approaches to metapopulation theory. Three types of approaches were modelled: 1) the classical concepts developed by Levins; 2) Pulliam's view on source and sink populations; and 3) an integrated model of conservation, based …

Linking Governance Storylines With The D-Expanse Model To Explore The Power System Transition Pathways, Evelina Trutnevyte

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In 2008 United Kingdom adopted an ambitious target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, compared to the levels of 1990. This is an unprecedented challenge to the power sector and multiple energy-environment-economic modeling activities have been undertaken to inform the energy policy to deliver this low-carbon transition. The role of governance, choices and strategies of the key actors is increasingly acknowledged as an influential determinant of such transition, but traditional energy-environment-economic models can hardly analyze these aspects. This paper proposes a methodological approach to integrating the governance aspects into energy-environment-economic modeling. In the Realizing Transition Pathways …

Assessment Of Policies For Low-Carbon Agriculture By Means Of Multi-Agent Simulation, Eygeny Latynskiy, Thomas Berger, Christian Troost

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agriculture and agriculture-inflicted land use change is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Reducing excessive deforestation and intensification of agricultural land use and consequently reducing associated GHG emissions is an important pathway of transition to a global low-carbon economy. Adoption of low-carbon agricultural systems and practices requires setting appropriate economic incentives for land users through smart policy instruments. For effective implementation of such instruments integrated ex-ante policy assessments are crucial. In this article we discuss and illustrate the benefits and potentials of applying multi-agent system models for the assessment of low-carbon policies and technologies. As an empirical example …

Empirical Agent-Based Modelling Of Everyday Pro­Environmental Behaviours At Work, Gary Polhill, Tony Craig, Amparo Alonso-Betanzos, Noelia Sanchez-Maroño, Óscar Fontenla-Romero, Adina Dumitru, Mirilia Bonnes, Marini Bonaiuto, Giuseppe Carrus, Ferdinando Fornara, Fridanna Maricchiolo, Linda Steg, Angela Ruepert, Kees Kaizer, Ricardo García-Mira

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We report on agent-based modelling work in the LOCAW project (Low Carbon at Work: Modelling Agents and Organisations to Achieve Transition to a Low Carbon Europe). The project explored the effectiveness of various backcasting scenarios conducted with case study organisations in bringing about pro-environmental change in the workforce in the domains of transport, energy use and waste. The model used qualitative representations of workspaces in formalising each scenario, and decision trees learned from questionnaire responses to represent decision-making. We describe the process by which the decision trees were constructed, noting that the use of decision trees in agent-based models requires …

Understanding Regime Shift In Land Systems With System Dynamics, Zhanli Sun, Daniel Müller

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land system change has major consequences for climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and is central to the debate of sustainable development. Land policies aimed at guiding land system towards sustainable pathways need to be informed by better understanding of land system change, and often rely on the forecasting of future land system change. For example, initiatives of Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) provide financial incentives to developing countries in tropical regions in exchange for a reduction of carbon emission from land system compared to business-as-usual. REDD+ schemes therefore rely on predictions of future land use without …

Innovative Techniques For Quantitative Scenarios In Energy And Environmental Research: A Review, Evelina Trutnevyte, Célene Guivarch

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Quantitative scenarios form the core of the future analysis in the energy, climate and other environment-related fields. A growing number of researchers worldwide start using innovative techniques for developing, analysing and choosing quantitative scenarios. Some of these techniques involve a large number of scenarios. Different rationales motivate these strands of research: better system understanding, uncertainty analysis, development of robust strategies, selection of a small set of scenarios, ability to link storylines with quantitative scenarios and other. These techniques are argued to provide both novel research insights and policy-relevant scenario exercises. A workshop, organised by UCL Energy Institute and Cired, on …

User Centered Design: Tools For Encouraging Climate Change Adaptation, Peter Verweij, Natascha Marinova, Rob Lokers

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climate change and it’s societal response in the form of mitigation and adaptation strategies have potentially very large impacts in different sectors, especially on regions with a high vulnerability. Climate change will greatly affect agricultural and natural ecosystems and urban centers. The scale and complexity of the interactions represent a challenge for policy makers, researchers and the public at large. It is the role of the policy maker at different levels of government to facilitate and encourage adaptation and to achieve the level of transparency needed to obtain the public support for taking far-reaching measures. The European Climate Adaptation Platform …

Modelling The Impact Of Microbial Loop On Aquatic Food Webs, Yu Li, Liancong Luo, Vardit Makler-Pick, Emily K. Read, Matthew R. Hipsey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In order to control algal blooms, it is necessary to better understand microbial interactions in aquatic ecosystems. Based on the traditional "Nutrients-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus" (NPZD) model, the "Nutrients-Phytoplankton-Zooplankton-Detritus+Bacteria" (NPZD+B) model has been developed to investigate the impact of the microbial loop on aquatic food webs via nutrient cycling processes. The results of the NPZD+B model showed the positive impact of the microbial loop on phytoplankton growth, and illustrated the importance of "bottom-up" (resource) control of algal blooms in aquatic ecosstems. The study concludes that the microbial loop is an important model component for simulating water quality dynamics when nutrients are limited in …

Parallel Simulation Of Environmental Phenomena, Ralf Denzer, Peter Fitch, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis, Daniel P. Ames

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper discusses the current situation with respect to the parallel simulation of environmental phenomena. It is not based on a complete and thorough investigation of the state-of- the-art in this domain and is more driven by observations, experiences and ideas of the four contributors who see the need to raise awareness towards a more systematic approach in the future. It is meant as a discussion paper to stimulate a more systematic approach towards parallel simulation in the environmental domain. While examples are mostly taken from hydrology, they are only used as illustration of a generic situation. The section on …

Fronting Integrated Scientific Web Applications: Design Features And Benefits For Regulatory Environments, Jonathan Flaishans, Tao Hong, Marcia Snyder, Chancellor Pascale, Thomas S. Purucker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated decision support systems for regulatory applications benefit from standard industry practices such as code reuse, test-driven development, and modularization. These approaches make meeting the federal government's goals of transparency, efficiency, and quality assurance more attainable, while facilitating science module updates and incorporation of new modules. The Obertool is a web-based dashboard suite of ecological risk assessment models supported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency that provides a cross-platform implementation for users. Its web-based approach provides users with a common interface to models developed in differing formats ranging from simple spreadsheet calculators to platform-dependent compiled executables. The dashboard combines …

Enhancing User Customization Through Novel Software Architecture For Utility-Scale Solar Siting Software, Brant Peery, R. Sam Alessi, Randy D. Lee, Leng Vang, Scott Brown, David Solan, Dan Ames

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The need exists for a spatial decision support application that allows users to create customized metrics for comparing proposed locations of a new solar installation. This document discusses how PVMapper was designed to overcome the customization problem through development of loosely coupled spatial and decision components in a JavaScript plug-in architecture, allowing the user to easily add functionality and data to the system. The paper also explains how PVMapper provides the user with a dynamic and customizable decision tool that enables them to visually modify the formulas that are used in the decision algorithms that convert data to comparable metrics. …

Cyberinfrastructure For Scalable Access To Stream Flow Analysis, Tyler Wible, Wes Lloyd, Olaf David, Mazdak Arabi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Traditionally the various components of flow analysis including flooding, drought, base-flow, pollutant loading, and duration curves have been examined independently by various analysis methods or software packages. A better approach would be to combine these multiple packages into a single web-tool to improve access. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud provides a scalable infrastructure for model implementation, which is a necessity of web services due to the characteristics of web traffic. IaaS centralizes the computational burden and overhead of multiple model runs from local computers to online servers. This paper demonstrates the scalability benefits of the Comprehensive Flow Analysis (CFA) tool in an …

Using Geostatistical Tools For Mapping Traffic-Related Air Pollution In Urban Areas, Lubos Matejicek

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Air pollution sources caused by increasing road traffic reduce air quality and affect people in urban areas. In order to improve living conditions in urban areas, predictions of effects on air pollution are needed for assessing exposures as part of epidemiological studies, and to inform urban air-quality policy and traffic management. A prediction system for estimation, analysis and visualization has been developed to model spatial patterns of traffic-related air pollution. In this study, several geostatistical techniques are used for prediction of NO₂ and PM₁₀. The primary data for geostatistical methods originate from sample points that are generated …

Software Engineering For Scientific Application: Effort Report On The Community Land Model Within The Earth System Modeling Framework, Dali Wang, Yang Xu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

One key factor in the improved understanding of earth system science is the development and improvement of high fidelity models. Along with the deeper understanding of earth system processes, the software complexity of those modelling systems becomes a barrier for further rapid model improvements and validation. In this paper, we present our experience on better understanding of the community land model (CLM) within an earth system modeling framework. After the science and software background of CLM, we represent three groups of CLM software engineering practices, which aim to 1) better understand the software system for rapid software system development on …

Characterizing Spatial Random Fields Through A Bayesian Inverse Modeling Framework And The High Throughput Computing Software - Htcondor, Carlos Osorio-Murillo, Daniel P. Ames, Heather Frystacky, Yoram Rubin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Spatial Random Fields (SRFs) are used to characterize the behavior of variables which are difficult to measure everywhere. In the case of hydraulic conductivity used in groundwater models, heterogeneity can be modeled through structural parameters of the random fields – parameters that define the field’s spatial distribution. Characterization of these structural parameters using a stochastic inverse method requires the evaluation of thousands of potential realizations of the SRF which is a time consuming and challenging task – reducing the adoption of stochastic models. To address this issue, this paper presents the integration of high throughput computing using HTCondor with the …

Use Of Low-Cost Particle Monitors To Calibrate Traffic­-Related Air Pollutant Models In Urban Areas, Edmund Seto, Elena Austin, Igor Novosselov, Micheal Yost

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The availability of new small and low-cost particulate matter monitors has enabled the collection of large quantities of data to calibrate traffic-related air pollution models in urban areas. We present laboratory findings on the performance of our Portable University of Washington Particle (PUWP) monitor compared to a reference instrument, and its application to air quality modeling for epidemiologic studies. The instrument has been calibrated in laboratory chamber studies as well as in field collocation studies against reference instruments. We are currently examining the use of the PUWP to calibrate air pollution. In our laboratory studies, four PUWP monitors were placed …

Balancing Externalities And Industrial Costs In Air Quality Planning, Claudio Carnevale, Giorgio Guariso, Enrico Pisoni, Marialuisa Volta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

When adopting regional plans aimed at improving air quality, environmental authorities are often faced with the relevant costs that the adoption of abatement measures implies. On the other hand, scientific literature has well documented damages due to air pollution impact on human health and ecosystems. This paper proposes a tool that allows balancing these two viewpoints by defining the efficient set of measures in a multi-objective perspective. Despite both external (health related) and internal (industrial/emission abatement related) costs can be measured in the same unit, namely money, it appears unacceptable to add them together as in a cost-benefit analysis, since …