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Integrating Openmi And Uncertweb: Managing Uncertainty In Openmi Models, Tushar Gupta, Richard Jones, Lucy Bastin, Dan Cornford Jul 2012

Integrating Openmi And Uncertweb: Managing Uncertainty In Openmi Models, Tushar Gupta, Richard Jones, Lucy Bastin, Dan Cornford

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

OpenMI is a widely used standard allowing exchange of data between integrated models, which has mostly been applied to dynamic, deterministic models. Within the FP7 UncertWeb project we are developing mechanisms and tools to support the management of uncertainty in environmental models. In this paper we explore the integration of the UncertWeb framework with OpenMI, to assess the issues that arise when propagating uncertainty in OpenMI model compositions, and the degree of integration possible with UncertWeb tools. In particular we develop an uncertainty-enabled model for a simple Lotka-Volterra system with an interface conforming to the OpenMI standard, exploring uncertainty in …

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Automatic Modelling And Continuous Map Generation From Georeferenced Species Census Data In An Interoperable Gis Environment, Lluís Pesquer, Ester Prat, Ricardo Díaz-Delgado, Joan Masó Jul 2012

Automatic Modelling And Continuous Map Generation From Georeferenced Species Census Data In An Interoperable Gis Environment, Lluís Pesquer, Ester Prat, Ricardo Díaz-Delgado, Joan Masó

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Natural Processes Monitoring Team from the Doñana Biological Station (EBD), systematically acquires data on more than 100 indicators of ecological processes and the status of many fauna and flora species in Doñana National Park, one of the most important protected wetlands in Europe, covering 54000 Ha. This information is available on a website as tabular data and trend charts. A detailed analysis is necessary in order to interpret this information and provide decision-making criteria for the management of the natural area. The purpose of this paper is to improve public access to the information collected in the monitoring program …

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Eliciting Farming Decisions Of Smallholders In Response To Water Availability Conditions In Chingale, Southern Malawi, J. Krywkow, S. P. Kam, C. T. Hoanh, A. D. G. Chijere Jul 2012

Eliciting Farming Decisions Of Smallholders In Response To Water Availability Conditions In Chingale, Southern Malawi, J. Krywkow, S. P. Kam, C. T. Hoanh, A. D. G. Chijere

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of this project is to examine adaptation strategies of smallholders in the Chingale district of Malawi to climate change impact, as well as to the implications of introducing the Integration of Aquaculture into Diversified Food production Systems (IADFS). The central approach of this research is combining an agent-based model (ABM) representing farmers with various types of production systems with a water resources model (WRM). Whereas the WRM relies on historical time series data of rainfall/ runoff and a set of climate change scenarios, the ABM builds upon recent household and village–size surveys in combination with population census and …

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Uncertainty Analysis And Data-Assimilation Of Remote Sensing Data For The Calibration Of Cellular Automata Based Land-Use Models, J. Van Der Kwast, Lien Poelmans, T. Van De Voorde, K. De Jong, Inge Uljee, D. Karssenberg, Frank Canters, Guy Engelen Jul 2012

Uncertainty Analysis And Data-Assimilation Of Remote Sensing Data For The Calibration Of Cellular Automata Based Land-Use Models, J. Van Der Kwast, Lien Poelmans, T. Van De Voorde, K. De Jong, Inge Uljee, D. Karssenberg, Frank Canters, Guy Engelen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A correct historic calibration of land-use models is important, because they are more and more used by decision makers. Existing calibration methods, however, do not sufficiently take into account uncertainties in input parameters. For that reason, uncertainties that propagate through simulations of future land use are mostly unknown. When uncertainties in model parameters can be estimated, Monte Carlo modelling can be used to approximate the uncertainty in simulated land-use patterns. This study shows that uncertainty information is not only indispensible for the interpretation of the output of land-use models, but that this can also be used to improve the calibration …

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The Environmental Causes Of Cancer Distribution In Syria, Rasha Deeb, Safiah Eid Jul 2012

The Environmental Causes Of Cancer Distribution In Syria, Rasha Deeb, Safiah Eid

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

the last two decades witnessed a boost in cancer incidences in Syria, as well as high mortality ratios. The influence of the environmental factors was neglected beforehand. The study employed the geographical tools to investigate the environmental distribution of cancer disease and the environmental factor that controls this distribution. The study used the statistical, systematic, analytical descriptive, comparative and the cartographical methods, each of which were employed differently according to the data characteristics. Personal and spatial data were collected from treatment points in a questionnaire that allowed adjusting each of them on the electronic interactive map. Data was analysed statistically …

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Suitability Of Land Cover And Remote Sensing Data For Modelling Species Distributions, Anna F. Cord, Doris Klein, Franz Mora, Stefan Dech Jul 2012

Suitability Of Land Cover And Remote Sensing Data For Modelling Species Distributions, Anna F. Cord, Doris Klein, Franz Mora, Stefan Dech

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Current changes of biodiversity result almost exclusively from human activities. As a consequence, spatially continuous estimates of species distributions are needed to support biodiversity evaluation and management. In the last two decades, species distribution models (SDMs) have been established as important tools for extrapolating in situ (point) observations. To account for current habitat loss, climate data used as predictors in SDMs need to be complemented by measures of current land surface characteristics. For this purpose, two alternative data sources are available, namely categorical land cover and continuous remote sensing data, each with their advantages and drawbacks. The objective of this …

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Integration Of The Daycent Biogeochemical Model Within A Multi-Model Framework, Jared Abodeely, David Muth, Kenneth Mark Bryden Jul 2012

Integration Of The Daycent Biogeochemical Model Within A Multi-Model Framework, Jared Abodeely, David Muth, Kenneth Mark Bryden

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agricultural residues are the largest near term source of cellulosic biomass for bioenergy production, but removing agricultural residues sustainably requires considering the critical roles that residues play in the agronomic system. Determination of sustainable removal rates for agricultural residues has received significant attention and integrated modeling strategies have been built to evaluate sustainable removal rates considering soil erosion and organic matter constraints. However, the current integrated model, comprised of the agronomic models WEPS, RUSLE2, and SCI, does not quantitatively assess the impacts of residue removal on soil organic carbon and long term crop yields. Furthermore, it does not evaluate the …

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Modelling And Simulating Social Vulnerability Under The Influence Of Climate Change In The Cordillera Blanca (Peru), Thaís López-Inojosa, Martina Neuburger, Sebastian Medina-Plascencia Jul 2012

Modelling And Simulating Social Vulnerability Under The Influence Of Climate Change In The Cordillera Blanca (Peru), Thaís López-Inojosa, Martina Neuburger, Sebastian Medina-Plascencia

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of this research is to develop and simulate a model of theecosocial concept of populations’ vulnerability under the impact of environmentalchange in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanca, through a social vulnerability indicator.Numerous studies provide evidence for the impact of climate change on nature,water scarcity, and social problems; people living near glaciers are particularlyaffected by these natural hazards. The Peruvian Cordillera Blanca, an area withone fourth of the world’s tropical glaciers and its population are highly at risk. Theapplications of fuzzy algorithms to research works in this area, and even more tosocial and ecological aspects, is a new approach to …

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Agroecosystem-Watershed (Ages-W) Model Evaluation For Streamflow And Nitrogen/Sediment Dynamics On A Midwest Agricultural Watershed, James C. Ascough Ii, Olaf David, Douglas R. Smith, Holm Kipka, Manfred Fink, Timothy R. Green, Peter Krause, G. S. Mcmaster, Sven Kralisch, L.R. Ahuja Jul 2012

Agroecosystem-Watershed (Ages-W) Model Evaluation For Streamflow And Nitrogen/Sediment Dynamics On A Midwest Agricultural Watershed, James C. Ascough Ii, Olaf David, Douglas R. Smith, Holm Kipka, Manfred Fink, Timothy R. Green, Peter Krause, G. S. Mcmaster, Sven Kralisch, L.R. Ahuja

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

AgroEcoSystem-Watershed (AgES-W) is a modular, Java-based spatially distributed model which implements hydrologic/water quality simulation components under the Object Modeling System Version 3 (OMS3). The AgES-W model was previously evaluated for streamflow and recently has been enhanced with the addition of nitrogen (N) and sediment modeling components refactored from various agroecosystem models including J2K-S, SWAT, WEPP, and RZWQM2. The specific objective of this study was to evaluate the accuracy and applicability of the enhanced AgES-W model for uncalibrated estimation of streamflow and N/sediment loading. The Upper Cedar Creek Watershed (CCW) in northeastern Indiana, USA was selected for model application. AgES-W model …

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Development Of An Activity-Based Cellular Automata Land-Use Model: The Case Of Flanders, Belgium, Tomas Crols, Roger White, Inge Uljee, Guy Engelen, Frank Canters, Lien Poelmans Jul 2012

Development Of An Activity-Based Cellular Automata Land-Use Model: The Case Of Flanders, Belgium, Tomas Crols, Roger White, Inge Uljee, Guy Engelen, Frank Canters, Lien Poelmans

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Cellular automata (CA) models are increasingly applied for simulating land-use change in urban areas. However, in areas with strongly mixed land uses, like Flanders, Belgium, different types and intensities of human activity occur within a single dominant land use. This is in conflict with the discrete and dominant land-use states applied in CA. The direct modelling of the intensity of activities (population density and employment in different sectors) within a CA grid environment is an interesting alternative to model mixed and multifunctional land use. In this research, an activity-based cellular automata (ACA) model, developed by White et al. [2012] will …

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Methods For The Assessment Of Human Health Impacts From Air Pollution Based On Monitoring Data, Atmospheric Dispersion Model Results And Contextual Data In Scotland, S. Reis, S. Steinle, H. Cowie, F. Hurley Jul 2012

Methods For The Assessment Of Human Health Impacts From Air Pollution Based On Monitoring Data, Atmospheric Dispersion Model Results And Contextual Data In Scotland, S. Reis, S. Steinle, H. Cowie, F. Hurley

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

High ambient concentrations of air pollutants, such as particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5),nitrogen oxides (NOx) or ground-level ozone, occur in densely populated areas and thus have thepotential for serious adverse human health effects. While statutory requirements for air qualitymonitoring due to national or European legislation defines the need for the operation of monitoringstations in particular in the densely populated urban areas, the spatial distribution of those sites isoften not sufficient to adequately assess exposure to air pollutants for the whole population. Theassessment of exposure to one or several air pollutants in an integrated manner has been describedin Reis et al. (2005) …

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Estimating Scale Effects Of Catchment Properties On Modeling Soil And Water Degradation In Benin (West Africa), A. Y. Bossa, B. Diekkrüger Jul 2012

Estimating Scale Effects Of Catchment Properties On Modeling Soil And Water Degradation In Benin (West Africa), A. Y. Bossa, B. Diekkrüger

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Distributed physically-based models require large amount of data,including detailed spatial information (e.g. geology, soil, vegetation). The relevanceof spatial information highly depends on the modeling scale and may control themodeling issue, mainly model parameters, which already depend on modelassumptions and target processes. In this study, scale dependent catchmentproperties were used to derive SWAT model parameters (for ungauged basins)using uncertainty thresholds and statistical approaches. Six individual sub-basinsof the Ouémé River (Benin) ranging from 586 to 10,072 km2 in size wereinvestigated, leading to the multi-scale modeling of discharge, sediment andnutrient dynamic. The Sequential Uncertainty Fitting approach was applied forcalibration and an uncertainty analysis. …

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Approaching Uncertainties In Land-Use Change Modeling In The Amazon Rainforest With Bayesian Belief Networks, Carsten Krüger, Dennis Funke, Tobia Lakes Jul 2012

Approaching Uncertainties In Land-Use Change Modeling In The Amazon Rainforest With Bayesian Belief Networks, Carsten Krüger, Dennis Funke, Tobia Lakes

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In recent years, modeling techniques to study land-use change and to develop scenarios for highlighting possible future pathways of land-use change have been increasingly applied and studied. While modeling results always incorporate uncertainties in terms of input data, model parameters, model boundaries, and model structure, up to now, only few land-use change modeling approaches have explicitly focused on uncertainties using e.g. Monte-Carlo simulation or Fuzzy logic. Decision makers, however, are not only interested in understanding possible consequences, but also in evaluating the reliability of these. Since land-use change is spatially dependent on its neighborhood, we especially address uncertainties associated with …

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Sustainable Settlement Growth By Modelbased Decision Support: Comparison Of Two Mca-Tools For Urban Regions, Sophie Schetke, Dagmar Haase Jul 2012

Sustainable Settlement Growth By Modelbased Decision Support: Comparison Of Two Mca-Tools For Urban Regions, Sophie Schetke, Dagmar Haase

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Multi-criteria decision support systems (MCA-DSS) have been gaining enormous importance for land use planning and policy making. The number of MCA-DSS is large and their purposes, actors to be involved and spatial context for application are highly diverse. In Germany, the national research programme “REFINA” (Research for the Reduction of Land Consumption and for Sustainable Land Management) funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) produced a number of different DSS for different actors and purposes. But also at the cross-national level, large research initiatives such as European Union’s Sixth Framework programme for research, priority »Global change and …

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Future Dynamics Of Irrigation Water Demand In The Farming Landscape Of The Venice Lagoon Watershed Under The Pressure Of Climate Change, Stefano Balbi, Sabindra Bhandari, Animesh Gain, Carlo Giupponi Jul 2012

Future Dynamics Of Irrigation Water Demand In The Farming Landscape Of The Venice Lagoon Watershed Under The Pressure Of Climate Change, Stefano Balbi, Sabindra Bhandari, Animesh Gain, Carlo Giupponi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Climate change impacts on the Venice Lagoon Watershed (VLW), an area of 2,038 km2 in the north-eastern part of Italy, are expected to be particularly relevant for agriculture, given that approximately two-thirds of the total area is devoted to field crops, horticulture and market gardens. Farmer’s irrigation behaviour plays a crucial role for the sustainability of crop productions and water consumption. In this study, an agent-based model is developed to explore how farmers’ decisions affect future water consumption in the VLW. The model is an “agentized version” of a soil water balance model based on the FAO-56 procedure. A climatic …

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Towards Integrated Model Building With Semantically Annotated Components, Oliver Schmitz, D. Karssenberg, Jean-Luc De Kok Jul 2012

Towards Integrated Model Building With Semantically Annotated Components, Oliver Schmitz, D. Karssenberg, Jean-Luc De Kok

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated models are valuable tools for research and decision support as they allow a comprehensive analysis of environmental systems. Component–based software frameworks aid in their development by a more straightforward construction and coupling of generic components. Formal descriptions of model components and their relationships by means of ontologies ease the clarification of the embedded knowledge. However, existing approaches do not adequately cover the development and assessment phases of integrated models. Here, we define invariant characteristics of process–based spatio– temporal systems and introduce an ontology to semantically describe model components and their interactions. We address the role of the ontology during …

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Visual Integration Of Diverse Environmental Data: A Case Study In Central Germany, C. Helbig, Karsten Rink, A. Marx, Joerg A. Priess, M. Frank, Olaf Kolditz Jul 2012

Visual Integration Of Diverse Environmental Data: A Case Study In Central Germany, C. Helbig, Karsten Rink, A. Marx, Joerg A. Priess, M. Frank, Olaf Kolditz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Land use and climate changes are some of the most important phenomena which will influence our life in the coming decades. To analyze these phenomena and the projections of their impact, diverse and dynamic data are collected and complex projects for observation and measurement are being developed (e.g. GLUES and TERENO projects). The goal is to find an appropriate way to visualize measured data in combination with simulation results. We propose to develop a generic methodology that can be used beyond the envisaged case study region ’Central Germany’ (Thuringia / Saxony / Saxony-Anhalt). The basis of the visualization consists of …

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Which Household Tolerates Droughts? – Strategies To Secure Pastoral Livelihoods, Romina Drees, A. Linstadter, Karin Frank, Birgit Müller Jul 2012

Which Household Tolerates Droughts? – Strategies To Secure Pastoral Livelihoods, Romina Drees, A. Linstadter, Karin Frank, Birgit Müller

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Increasing frequencies of droughts pose a threat to pastoral livelihoods in drylands. Using a rangeland model, we analyze the effects of droughts and mobility strategies on herd size dynamics. Since the herd provides the basic income for mobile pastoralists, we evaluate herd dynamics as income to estimate the risk of endangered livelihoods due to droughts. This methodology enables us to identify critical changes in natural resource use systems which are prone to shocks. Model results show that the socio-economic type of the household and therewith its adaptive capacity to be mobile rather than the obvious ecological effects of droughts determine …

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Realizing Transition Pathways To Provide Required Ecosystem Services – An Inverse Approach, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Ricardo Crespo Jul 2012

Realizing Transition Pathways To Provide Required Ecosystem Services – An Inverse Approach, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Ricardo Crespo

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this study we propose an inverse modeling approach to quantify required ecosystem services provision for reaching future planning goals. As a case study we investigate urbanization processes in two regions in Switzerland. We use a binary logistic econometric model to relate probabilities of urbanization to a set of land use determinants such as geographical factors, climate, agricultural subsidies, and ecosystem services. By the use of the inverse modeling we find the necessary trade-offs between ecosystem services in order to achieve a given probability of land use change from agricultural to settlement. From an urban planning perspective such given probability …

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Transdisciplinary Research For Supporting Environmental Management, Meike Düspohl, Sina Frank, Tuck-Fatt Siew, Petra Döll Jul 2012

Transdisciplinary Research For Supporting Environmental Management, Meike Düspohl, Sina Frank, Tuck-Fatt Siew, Petra Döll

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Generation and integration of different forms of disciplinary knowledgeand knowledge outside of academia have become increasingly important in theeffort of tackling real-world problems that are related to complex and uncertainhuman-environment systems. In recent years, transdisciplinary research hasemerged as a collaborative and integrative approach for the co-generation ofsystem knowledge, target knowledge, and transformation knowledge amongscientists and stakeholders. In this paper, we present a methodology forparticipatory modelling processes that we apply in a transdisciplinary project forsustainable energy supply based on renewable energies in the county of Groß-Gerau in the German state of Hesse. The core of the transdisciplinary researchproject is a stakeholder …

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The Application Of The Virtual Ecologist Approach To Evaluating The Effects Of Uncertainty In Plot Based Monitoring Schemes Due To Landscape Spatial And Temporal Heterogeneity, Alex Lechner, Daniel Clarke, Dion Weatherley, Andrew Fletcher, Peter Erskine, Alexis Comber Jul 2012

The Application Of The Virtual Ecologist Approach To Evaluating The Effects Of Uncertainty In Plot Based Monitoring Schemes Due To Landscape Spatial And Temporal Heterogeneity, Alex Lechner, Daniel Clarke, Dion Weatherley, Andrew Fletcher, Peter Erskine, Alexis Comber

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Monitoring programs that can detect changes in ecosystem condition are critical to assessing the success of rehabilitation and detecting negative anthropogenic impacts from activities such as mining. However, vegetation communities vary considerably and may exhibit short-term condition changes that mask long-term trends. This paper describes the development of a virtual ecologist (VE) landscape and observation simulation model for time-series data (VELOS_t). VELOS_t can be used to quantify the relationship between vegetation temporal and spatial variability, measurement uncertainty and sampling design to evaluate the robustness of a particular monitoring strategy. The model has four components: i) a landscape model that uses …

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Evaluation Of Different Sources Of Uncertainty In Climate Change Impact Research Using A Hydro-Climatic Model Ensemble, Markus Muerth, Blaise Gauvin St-Denis, Ralf Ludwig, Daniel Caya Jul 2012

Evaluation Of Different Sources Of Uncertainty In Climate Change Impact Research Using A Hydro-Climatic Model Ensemble, Markus Muerth, Blaise Gauvin St-Denis, Ralf Ludwig, Daniel Caya

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The international research project QBic3 (Quebec-Bavarian Collaboration on Climate Change) aims at investigating the potential impacts of climate change on the hydrology of regional scale catchments in Southern Quebec (Canada) and Bavaria (Germany). Yet, the actual change in river runoff characteristics during the next 70 years is highly uncertain due to a multitude of uncertainty sources. The so-called hydro-climatic ensemble that is constructed to describe the uncertainties of this complex model chain consists of four different global climate models, downscaled by three different regional climate models, an exchangeable bias correction algorithm, a separate method to scale RCM outputs to the …

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Design And Implementation Of The Land Surface Model Naturalenvironment Within The Generic Framework Opendanubia For Integrative, Distributed Environmental Modelling, Daniel Waldmann, Markus Muerth, Wolfram Mauser Jul 2012

Design And Implementation Of The Land Surface Model Naturalenvironment Within The Generic Framework Opendanubia For Integrative, Distributed Environmental Modelling, Daniel Waldmann, Markus Muerth, Wolfram Mauser

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The project GLOWA-Danube (http://www.glowa-danube.de) aimed atinvestigating the manifold consequences of Global Change on regional waterresources in the Upper Danube Basin. In order to achieve this task, aninterdisciplinary, university-based network of experts developed the integrativeDecision Support System OpenDanubia (OD). The common base for implementingand coupling the various scientific model components is a generic framework,which provides the coordination of the coupled models that run in parallelexchanging iteratively data via their interfaces. The OD framework takes care oftechnical aspects, such as ordered data exchange between sub-models, dataaggregation, data output, model parallelization and data distribution over thenetwork, which means that model developers do not …

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Classification-Driven Air Pollution Mapping As For Environment And Health Analysis, S. Wiemann, S. Richter, P. Karrasch, J. Brauner, K. Pech, L. Bernard Jul 2012

Classification-Driven Air Pollution Mapping As For Environment And Health Analysis, S. Wiemann, S. Richter, P. Karrasch, J. Brauner, K. Pech, L. Bernard

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This article presents an air pollution modelling approach and its use in healthapplications within the EO2HEAVEN project. The model is based on a multidimensionalInverse DistanceWeighting and makes use of artificial distances between area attributes.The number and type of attributes used is fully customizable and can be adapted accordingto specific application fields and data preconditions. It is kept flexible and simple andthus, suitable to be used within a Spatial Data Infrastructure to provide access to realtimeair pollution information via the internet. In a prototypical implementation the modelis applied to estimate the concentration of particular matter and ozone in the FederalState of …

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Assessing The Influence Of Long-Term Urban Growth Scenarios On Urban Climate, Rahim Aguejdad, Julia Hidalgo, Omar Doukari, Valéry Masson, Thomas Houet Jul 2012

Assessing The Influence Of Long-Term Urban Growth Scenarios On Urban Climate, Rahim Aguejdad, Julia Hidalgo, Omar Doukari, Valéry Masson, Thomas Houet

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The objective of this paper is to assess the influence of future urbangrowth scenarios on future urban climate in Toulouse metropolitan area (France).Specifically, we aim to test the hypothesis that urban growth based on sprawlingpatterns has a greater influence on the Urban Heat Island (UHI) phenomena thancompact patterns. Three urban growth scenarios are built by 2100 followingdifferent urban patterns (edge growth, spontaneous growth and a hybrid of both).Those simulations are performed using a new spatially explicit urban growth model(SLEUTHR) which was specifically developed for that purpose. The impact of urbangrowth on the air temperature is estimated under the same climate …

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Using System Dynamics For Environmental Modelling: Lessons Learnt From Six Case Studies, Sondoss Elsawah, Dagmar Haase, Hedwig Van Delden, Suzanne Pierce, Amgad Elmahdi, Alexey A. Voinov, A. J. Jakeman Jul 2012

Using System Dynamics For Environmental Modelling: Lessons Learnt From Six Case Studies, Sondoss Elsawah, Dagmar Haase, Hedwig Van Delden, Suzanne Pierce, Amgad Elmahdi, Alexey A. Voinov, A. J. Jakeman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

System dynamics modelling includes a set of conceptual and numerical methods that are used to understand the structure and behaviour of complex systems, such as socio-ecological systems. A system dynamics model represents the causal relationships, feedback loops, and delays that are thought to generate the system behaviour. System dynamics is widely used for developing environmental models and decision support systems. However, little attention has been given to reflecting on modelling exercises in terms of the utility of system dynamics, its strengths and limitations, experienced during modelling and implementation challenges. These practical lessons are useful for guiding modellers on deciding when …

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Using Social Psychology Theory For Modelling Farmer Decision-Making, James D. A. Millington Jul 2012

Using Social Psychology Theory For Modelling Farmer Decision-Making, James D. A. Millington

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Many agent-based models (ABMs) use typologies to classify diverse actors into few simplified conceptual categories (e.g., hobby farmer, commercial farmer) with uniform decision-making strategies. This approach usually assumes that a representative agent can belong to only a single conceptual category at any one time. However, Social Psychological Theory (SPT) asserts that individual actors' identities are constructed of multiple hierarchical self-concepts that drive decisions and behaviour. Identities may also change through time. Recent empirical and theoretical work has used this theory to investigate agricultural transitions and cultural change, but its use in an agent-based framework has yet to be explored. To …

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An Application Of Data Mining To Fruit And Vegetable Sample Identification Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, Geoffrey Holmes, D. Fletcher, P. Reutemann Jul 2012

An Application Of Data Mining To Fruit And Vegetable Sample Identification Using Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, Geoffrey Holmes, D. Fletcher, P. Reutemann

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

One of the uses of Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) is in the detection of pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables. In a high throughput laboratory there is the potential for sample swaps or mislabelling, as once a sample has been pre-processed to be injected into the GC-MS analyser, it is no longer distinguishable by eye. Possible consequences of such mistakes can be the destruction of large amounts of actually safe produce or pesticide-contaminated produce reaching the consumer. For the purposes of food safety and traceability, it can also be extremely valuable to know the source (country of origin) of a …

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Simulating Shrinkage As Shock? Insights From Existing Shrinkage Models, Dagmar Haase, Nina Schwarz Jul 2012

Simulating Shrinkage As Shock? Insights From Existing Shrinkage Models, Dagmar Haase, Nina Schwarz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Modellers and social scientists attempt to find better explanations of complex urban systems. Such explanations include development paths, underlying driving forces, and impacts of such systems but might also include shocks. So far, land-use research has predominantly focused on urban – means population and/or settlement – growth. However, a comparatively new challenge has arisen since urban shrinkage entered the research agenda of the land use science. Although the phenomenon of urban shrinkage has become increasingly widespread in Europe, the US and Japan, urban land use modelling has rarely addressed it neither in terms of process description and dynamics, nor in …

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Applying The Inverse Distance Weighting And Kriging Methods Of The Spatial Interpolation On The Mapping The Annual Precipitation In Bosnia And Herzegovina, Drešković Nusret, Samir Dug Jul 2012

Applying The Inverse Distance Weighting And Kriging Methods Of The Spatial Interpolation On The Mapping The Annual Precipitation In Bosnia And Herzegovina, Drešković Nusret, Samir Dug

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Two methods of the spatial interpolation [Inverse Distance Weighting(IDW) and the Kriging], often used in the Geographical Information System (GIS),have been applied on the mapping of the annual amount of precipitation in Bosniaand Herzegovina. For that purpose the monthly precipitation data obtained frommeteorological network in the period 1960-2011. The validation of the analyzeddata has been carried out by using 20-meter resolution Digital Elevation Model(DEM). The methods, which are suitable for the spatial interpolation for Bosnia andHerzegovina area, particularly for the orographic regions, were analyzed. First, theIDW linear interpolator was considered. However, in the mountain region, thismethod can give unrealistic results …

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