Digital Commons Network^™

Semi-Structured Knowledge Models And Web Service Driven Integration For Online Execution And Sharing Of Water Sustainability Models, Luis Garnica Chavira, Jose Caballero, Natalia Villanueva Rosales, Deana Pennington

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The wide variety in descriptions, implementations, and accessibility of scientific models poses a huge challenge for model interoperability. Model interoperability is key in the automation of tasks including model integration, seamless access to distributed models, data reuse and repurpose. Current approaches for model interoperability include the creation of generic standards and vocabularies to describe models, their inputs and outputs. These domain-agnostic standards often do not provide the fine-grained level required to describe a specific domain or task, and extending such standards requires a considerable amount of effort and time that is deviated from the purpose of producing scientific breakthrough and …

Updating Recurrent Neural Networks For Near Real-Time Water Demand Predictive Models, Bruno Melo Brentan, Gustavo Meirelles, Manuel Herrera, Edevar Luvizotto Junior, Joaquin Izquierdo

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Optimal management operations in water distribution systems (WDSs) improve water utility performance by reducing costs and resource waste. Obviously, the more accurate the water demand forecasting model, the better the operation. Classical artificial neural networks (ANNs) use external variables (e.g. weather and social variables) as inputs for their water demand forecasting processes. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) use ANN architectures of several layers, and use the output of these layers as inputs for the previous layers, thus generating a closed loop for the regression process, what typically outperforms ANN performance. This work aims to generate even better results than RNNs by …

Ambiguity In Decision-Makers’ Information Needs: From Barrier To Enabling Factor For Urban Adaptation To Climate Change, Raffaele Giordano, Adriaan Perrels, Karoliina Pilli-Sihvola, Raffaella Matarrese

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

There is a mounting international interest about how to address the implications of climate change for urban areas. The availability and sharing of “good” knowledge and information is a key prerequisite for a successful planning in cities, specifically if we consider climate change adaptation as a collective decision process. This raises the importance of the availability/usability of proper “planner/user friendly” interfaces – i.e. climate services – helping decision makers to interpret and translate the available information into adaptation decisions, and to facilitate the sharing of this information within the interaction network in which the different actors are embedded. Evidences demonstrate …

Linear Prediction Techniques For Performance Enhancement And Maintenance Of Water Networks Using Scada Data, Arnau Martí, Pere Marti-Puig, Moisès Serra-Serra, Manuel Pardo

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

From the analysis of the data captured in real time through a SCADA system, a contribution to improving the management of drinking water distribution and the early detection of anomalies is presented. In a real water network, the SCADA system must periodically acquire, store and validate the data collected by sensor measurements to achieve accurate network monitoring. For each sensor measurement, the raw data is usually represented by one-dimensional time series which must be validated before further use to ensure the reliability of the results obtained. In the present approach, we use linear predictors to verify data, detect outliers and …

Exploring Complex Systems For Broadening Participation In Stem Through Participatory Modeling, Ronda J. Jenson, Alexis N. Petri, Arden D. Day

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Paper/Oral Presentation:

Participatory modeling is well suited for exploring and defining the complexities of a system as experienced by a full array of stakeholders. An example is broadening participation of persons with disabilities and underrepresented minorities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Funded by the National Science Foundation, the authors used participatory modeling in numerous settings, employing a variety of interactive techniques to elicit individual and group models. Using these techniques, our models resulted in more profound reflection, clarity, and descriptiveness of contributing factors. This approach also promoted inclusive and diverse perspectives because it involves the full array of …

Evaluation Of Forest Fire Fighting Simulator, Ferat Mantar, Ahmet Birol Cavdar, Osman Bilir, Ertugrul Bilgili

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Forest Fire Fighting Training Simulator (3FTS) is an interactive, real time simulation software designed to improve organization, coordination and firefighting capabilities of the different level fire managers in fighting forest fires. 3FTS utilizes a high fidelity fire propagation model to simulate fire behavior, and a fire suppression model to introduce the effects of the firefighting actions taken by the virtual firefighting crew or equipment in a synthetic environment. In this study, fire propagation model of 3FTS was explained first, describing how the factors that affect fire behavior, such as weather, fuel and topography were incorporated into the model. Then, …

Characterization Of Electric Energy Consumption With Clustering Techniques: A Case Study In Northern Mexico, Dante Conti, Karina Gibert, Daniela De La Rosa

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Nowadays, for electricity operators it is crucial to get a balance between generation & distribution of energy versus current demand, so a better characterization of load profiles would help operators to achieve that balance. Data mining techniques are frequently used to discover patterns of energy consumption in time-granularity. This consumption is affected for seasonal trends, weather, type of days and hourly blocks. This research is aimed to determine differentiated profiles by applying clustering techniques to divide data in groups labeled in relation with top-down levels in time-granularity: seasons (top level), typology of days and hourly blocks (down level). A database …

Identifying Model Structure Using Catchment Characteristics, Bruce Tran, R.W. Vervoort, Floris F. Van Ogtrop

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Currently, there are many rainfall-runoff models available, but no single model can account for the uniqueness and variability of all catchments. While there has been great progress in developing frameworks for optimal model selection, the process currently selects a range of model structures a priori rather than starting from catchment behaviour and hydrological processes. In this study, six hydrological signatures and two catchment characteristics from 108 catchments were extracted for two 7-year time periods: (1) wet and; (2) dry. The data was modelled using the GR4J model to explore the relationship between model performance, catchment features and identified parameters. The …

How Many Cats (Or “Cat-Equivalents”) Does It Take To Cause An Extinction? And How Simple Can You Make A Model Before It Becomes Useless?, Kate O'Brien, Michaela Plein, Matthew Holden, Nigel Bean, Christopher Baker, Eve Mcdonald-Madden

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Managers make decisions on how to protect and restore environmental systems, along with associated ecosystem services. Ideally, these decisions are made with the support of predictive models, built on a sound understanding of how the system works, validated with data and accompanied by credible estimates of uncertainty. However, in many cases data are scarce or non-existent, understanding of key processes is limited, and disturbances such as land-use change or invasive species may be fundamentally altering the way the system functions. If there are insufficient data available for meaningful parameterization or validation, and no prospect of more data becoming available, how …

Eliciting Stakeholder Representations Of A Marine Socio-Ecosystem: Participatory Modelling Of Shellfish Aquaculture In The Normand-Breton Gulf, France, Sophie Gourguet, Léa Monnier, Jeffrey M. Dambacher, Martin P. Marzloff, Cédric Bacher, Pierre Boudry, Philippe Cugier, Nicolas Desroy, Aline Gangnery, Sophie Girard, Patrick Le Mao, Jose A. Pérez, Olivier Thébaud

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In data-poor situations, qualitative modelling (Puccia and Levins’ “loop analysis”) combined with participatory involvement of stakeholders is well suited to holistically represent the complexity of socio-ecosystems and to assess system stability and its responses to long-term perturbations. This paper presents the results of a qualitative modelling project that involved an interdisciplinary team across natural sciences, social sciences, and modelling. The project focused on analysing the sustainability of a socio-ecosystem with an intense activity of shellfish aquaculture in the Normand-Breton gulf, France. Our primary objective was to involve stakeholders into the participatory development of qualitative models describing the structure and functioning …

A Survey Of Precipitation Data For Environmental Modeling, Jan Sitterson, Chris Knightes, Rajbir Parmar, Kurt Wolfe, Brian Avant, Deron Smith

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

There is always a challenge of obtaining the “best” data to inform environmental models. Here we present different types of available precipitation datasets while detailing temporal and spatial resolution, potential errors in the dataset, and optimal performance scenarios. Our goal is to inform modelers of the various types, resolutions, and sources of precipitation data available for environmental modeling. Precipitation is the main driver in the hydrological cycle and modelers use this information to understand water quality and water availability. Environmental models use observed precipitation information for modeling past or current conditions, while simulated data are used to predict future conditions …

A Data Science Approach To Assess Resilience And Complexity In The European Transmission Power Grid, Mar Fernandez, Marti Rosas-Casals, Gibert Karina

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper, we aim at assessing the complexity and resilience of the European Transmission Power Grid (ETPG) following a data science approach. We consider open data related to energy policies and infrastructural and economic variables, together with ETPG reliability data (i.e., major failures and blackout data) of most European countries, considering data from a period of 14 years’ (2002 – 2014). A Data Science approach is used to understand spatio-temporal patterns of failures and blackouts of the ETPG along the different countries and periods. A combination of clustering methods with post-processing interpretation techniques and complex networks analysis is applied …

Hec-Hms Markov Chain Monte Carlo Implementation: Existing Capabilities And Future Opportunities, Austen Kristina Nelson, Brian E. Skahill, William Scharffenberg, Amir Aghakouchak, Jeffrey Baggett

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Hydrologic Engineering Center Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS), developed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), has now served for several decades as a key tool for hydrologic modeling planning analysis within the United States. The software’s popularity stems from its ease of use and widespread applicability to a variety of hydrologic conditions. The current risk-informed planning analysis approach within the USACE requires comprehensive assessments of uncertainty, including HEC-HMS model uncertainty. To meet this need, the USACE has leveraged related research from the academic community, such that forthcoming versions of HEC-HMS will now include a Markov Chain Monte …

Variable Selection For Improving Predictions Of Hydrological Events, Marina G. Erechtchoukova, Marina Zistler

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Application of supervised classification to short-term predictions of hydrological events rely on data routinely collected by Conservation Authorities with high frequencies on streams and their watersheds. It implies that the quality of predictions depends on location of monitoring stations and representativeness of data sets used in the analysis. Given that application of classification algorithms requires data transformation, an attempt was made to improve the performance of these algorithms by extending the set of variables of black box models which are supplied by stream and rain gauges and include their derivatives which may carry very important information as well. The original …

An Integrated Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Framework For Assessing The Sustainability Of Alternative Jet Fuels, Ben W. Kolosz Phd, John M. Andresen Phd, Bing Xu Phd, P Greening Phd, J Ouenniche Phd, Mercedes M. Maroto-Valer Phd

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

One of the most viable options to decarbonise the aviation industry is to operate existing engines and aircrafts through low-carbon alternative jet fuels (AJFs). The key advantages of these fuels are that they work with existing engine technology, allowing a seamless transition between conventional petroleum jet fuels and more sustainable feedstocks. Lifecycle Assessment models have introduced datasets which attempt to estimate the emissions of AJFs’ process pathways from various feedstocks. To assist with decision making and policy formation in AJFs, a more relativistic performance of different technology solutions must be assessed to provide an impartial picture of technologies. Here, we …

Assessing The Environmental Fate Of Graphene Oxide Nanoparticles And Their Reaction Products In Surface Waters Using The Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (Wasp8), Yanlai Han, Christopher Knightes, Richard Zepp, Dermont Bouchard, Xiaojun Chang, Hsin-Se Hsieh, Brian Avant, Matt Henderson, Jessica Spear, Brad Acrey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The risk assessment of engineered nanomaterials in the environment significantly relies on mathematical models. The Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP) is one of the most widely used water quality models throughout the world, and has recently been updated (WASP8) to include numerical algorithms for simulating the fate and transport of engineered nanomaterials in surface waters. Sunlight exposure induces the phototransformation of graphene oxide (GO) nanoparticles in surface waters, resulting in products that include photoreduced GO (rGO) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In this study, we assume that GO releases into a river at a constant loading for 20 years, …

A Web-Based Tool For Fuzzy Cognitive Map Modeling, Elpiniki Papageorgiou, Konstantinos Papageorgiou, Zoumpolia Dikopoulou, Asmaa Mouhrir

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) is an efficient and a relatively easy to understand semi-quantitative extension of cognitive maps, combining aspects of fuzzy logic and neural networks. It has found a great applicability in diverse scientific domains for modeling and providing decision making support in complex problems with high uncertainty, including environmental management. In essence, the FCM modeling approach attempts to capture the functional and causal interactions about complex systems by relying on experts’ domain knowledge, or using stakeholders’ views and perceptions, which can reduce conflicts among stakeholders by capturing the different inter-sectorial synergies and tradeoffs, helping hence to reach …

On Complex Networks Representation And Computation Of Hydrological Quantities, Francesco Serafin, Marialaura Bancheri, Olaf David, Riccardo Rigon

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Too often scientific efforts from research environments cannot find full application in supporting decision-makers and policy makers. The existing gap between the two environments is the result of lacking of communication. To bridge this gap, scientific outputs should be easier to interpret. The exposure of modelling methodologies through appropriate languages and symbols could really be the missing link between the two “worlds”.

This abstract introduces a network-focused modeling approach to represent hydrological relationships in catchment and subcatchment and to manage related modeling solutions through flexible computational bindings.

The representation is built upon mathematical category. A category is an algebraic structure …

Multiplatform Model Integration Framework Of Jrodos - Decision Support System For Off-Site Nuclear Emergency Management, Ievgen Ievdin, Dmytro Trybushnyi, Wolfgang Raskob, Tim Müller, Oleksandr Pylypenko, Oleksandr Mykhalskyi, Mark Zheleznyak

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Decision Support Systems for off-site emergency management in the case of a nuclear accident should integrate, among others, real-time monitoring systems around a Nuclear Power Plant, regional GIS information, source term databases and geospatial data for population and environmental characteristics. They should comprise state of the art models to simulate the fate of accidentally released radionuclides in air, water, vegetation, and soil to estimate exposure of the population via all relevant exposure pathways. The real-time online decision support system RODOS is being developed under the auspices of the European Commission’s RTD Framework programs since 1992 to achieve the above-formulated objectives. …

Increasing The Computational Efficiency Of Optimal Water Infrastructure Sequencing Using Artificial Neural Network Metamodels, Holger R. Maier, Eva H. Y. Beh, Feifei Zheng, Graeme C. Dandy, Zoran Kapelan

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The optimal long-term sequencing of water infrastructure is complicated by the need to account for uncertainty due to factors such as climate change and demographics. This requires the calculation of robustness metrics in order to assess system performance, necessitating computationally expensive simulation models to be run a large number of times within each optimisation iteration, leading to infeasible run times. In order to overcome this shortcoming, an approach is developed that uses metamodels instead of computationally expensive simulation models in robustness calculations. The approach is demonstrated for the optimal sequencing of water supply augmentation options for the southern portion of …

Simulating Hydroeconomic Impacts Of Potential Water Rights Trade In The Lake Naivasha Basin Using A Mopec Modeling Framework, Tesfaye Woldeyohanes, Arnim Kuhn Dr.

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

We use an integrated hydroeconomic model for Lake Naivasha Basin, Kenya (LANA-HEBAMO) to analyze the impact of institutional and biophysical changes on resource allocation and water system performance. An extended mathematical programming approach called MOPEC (multiple optimization problems with equilibrium constraint) is used. This approach allows each economically independent water user to maximize its own objective function subject to another agent’s water use decisions as well as other biophysical and institutional constraints. MOPEC is an individual optimization approach and avoids unrealistic assumptions in aggregate optimization that assume omniscient decision maker with perfect foresight to reallocate water such that the water …

Energy Consumption Prediction For Recreation Facilities Using Hybrid Neuro-Fuzzy Inference Systems, Paul Banda, Muhammed Bhuiyan, Guomin Zhang, Andy Song

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Leisure centers are growing in popularity as health and physical fitness awareness is becoming an integral part of human society. Leisure centers consume more energy compared to most office buildings but are less studied in the area of non-residential energy consumption prediction. This work presents an energy consumption prediction effort for a leisure center using a class of two ANFIS based adaptive networks: ANFIS GP and ANFIS SC and multi-linear regression. Climatic, periodicity and energy use data collected over a period of eight months were pre-processed, normalized and split into training and testing sets before being presented to the adaptive …

Empiric And Semi-Empiric Modelling Of Radionuclide Long-Term Dynamics In The Soil-Water Environment: Fukushima And Chernobyl, Aleksei Konoplev, Yoshifumi Wakiyama, Yasunori Igarashi, Vladimir Kanivets, Gennady Laptev, Sergii Obrizan, Leonid Bogdan, Yuliya Balashevska, Kenji Nanba, Yuichi Onda

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Today, 7 years after the Fukushima accident, when emergency and short-term phases are over, the most relevant issue is long-term dynamics of radiocesium in the environment. Detailed analysis of Chernobyl data covering an extended period can become a foundation for long-term prediction of changes in environmental radioactive contamination in Fukushima. In our studies of the irrigation ponds in Okuma town, radiocesium (r-Cs) showed a persistent behavior and was characterized by regular seasonal variations: the r-Cs concentrations tend to grow in the summer and decrease in the winter. Similar behavior of r-Cs was observed in Chernobyl cooling pond for 30 years …

Neural Network For Tuning-Friendly Automatic Outlier Detection In Water Quality Time Series, Cyril Garneau, Peter A. Vanrolleghem

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

With the increasing presence of online sensors to monitor environmental systems, automatic outlier detection procedures are necessary to tackle the huge amount of data generated. Cleaned time series can afterwards be filtered, screened for fault detection, used for process control or decision support.

Outliers from time series exhibiting stable signals can easily be removed by tracking the local mean and standard deviation and accepting all data within, e.g., from the mean. However, environmental time series often exhibit large discontinuities or highly unstable behaviour, which requires more advanced outlier detection methods. Unfortunately, these advanced methods require complex parameterization that depends on …

User-Friendly Decision Support For Integrated Water Management: Epa’S Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool (Wmost), Naomi Detenbeck, Alyssa Le, Amy Piscopo, Timothy Stagnitta, Jeff White, Shannon Mckenrick, Annie Brown, Marilyn Ten Brink

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Communities, utilities, and watershed organizations have multiple goals for water resource management; these include meeting regulatory requirements but may extend to economic, supply, siting, recreation, and other goals. The Watershed Management Optimization Support Tool, WMOST, allows stakeholders to identify the most cost effective suite of management options across stormwater, drinking water, wastewater, and land conservation programs that will meet their identified goals and constraints. Instructions to guide the user through data entry, selection of potential management practices and constraints, optimization, and display of results are embedded in a Microsoft ® Excel spreadsheet. WMOST reads in baseline hydrology (runoff, recharge) and …

Software Development Best Practices In Integrated Environmental Model Development, Takuya Iwanaga, Joel Rahman, Daniel Partington, Barry Croke, Anthony J. Jakeman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated models are often made up of smaller component models, each representing a particular domain that are coupled together. Such models are software for a scientific purpose, and so similarities between model and software development exist. These models tend to be developed by researchers who take on a dual-role of scientist and software developer.

Despite the similarities in development approaches, many best practices found within the field of software engineering may not be applied. These lead to issues revolving around the reusability, interoperability, and reliability (in terms of model application and results) of models developed for integrated assessment. To address …

Evaluation Of Processing Variables In Polymer Projection Sintering, Justin Nussbaum, Nathan B. Crane

Faculty Publications

Purpose – Projection sintering, a system for selectively sintering large areas of polymer powder simultaneously with a high power projector is introduced. The paper evaluates the suitability of laser sintering process parameters for projection sintering as it uses substantially lower intensities, longer exposure times, and larger areas than conventional laser sintering (LS).

Design/methodology/approach – The tradeoffs in sintering outcomes are evaluated by creating single layer components with varied exposure times and optical intensities. Some of these components were cross-sectioned and evaluated for degree of densification while the single layer thickness and the maximum tensile force was measured for the rest. …

Solar Energy Potential Assessment For Entire Cities - A Reusable And Scalable Approach, Sukriti Bhattacharya, Ulrich Leopold, Christian Braun, Francesco Bongiovanni

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The recent technological advances in massive geospatial data collection assessing both the temporal and spatial dimensions of data add significant complexity to the data analysis process, provides new dimensions for data interpretation. Accordingly, geographical information systems (GIS) must evolve to represent, access, analyze and visualize big spatiotemporal data in a scalable integrated way. Often, sharing and transferring of such information through deep-dive and automated analysis cause scalability challenges at the software level that impacts the overall performance, throughput, and other performance parameters. In this paper, we demonstrated the whole implementation explaining some practical steps to scale solar irradiation calculations for …

A Metric For Evaluating The Ability Of The Rzwqm Model To Project The Impact Of Climate Change, Robert Anex, Lei Gu, Matthew Helmers

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Making projections with models is always difficult and climate change poses a particularly challenging problem for biophysical models which tend to be over-parameterized and have poor predictive power when extrapolations are beyond the range of the calibration. It is common practice to assume that if a calibrated model replicates observations reasonably well, predictions under other conditions will also be reasonably good. Unfortunately, this assumption is not always correct, as we show for prediction of nitrate loss from a tile-drained, corn-soybean experiment in Northern Iowa.

The RZWQM is a biophysical process model that simulates plant growth and movement of water and …

Cyber-Security Of Water Distribution Systems: Current Challenges And Future Directions, Riccardo Taormina, Stefano Galelli

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The combination of advanced metering hardware with controllable networked devices provides a unique opportunity to improve the reliability, efficiency, and level of automation of water distribution systems. The flipside of this technological development is their vulnerability to cyber attacks: smart meters, sensors, PLCs, and SCADA represent an ‘attack surface’ that can be exploited by hackers to access private information or even disrupt system operations. What are the most vulnerable components? How do water distribution networks respond to cyber attacks? Is it possible to detect them?

To answer these questions, we first provide an overview of the mathematical modelling approaches available …