Digital Commons Network^™

Operationalizing Social Ecological Systems Resilience Analysis Using A Dynamic Index, Bruno Meirelles

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Governance of social ecological systems (SES) is a difficult task. Embrace its complexity, the coupled nature of social and ecological dimensions, feedbacks and non-linearity of its attributes and the necessity of dealing with society participation in the decision process make the challenge bigger. Resilience is a growing research field that can collaborate with this discussion. Resilience is a SES feature that enhance its capacity of maintain identity under different systems changes. This work uses system dynamics theory as foundation to build a Dynamic Resilience Index. This index uses Cobb-Douglas equation to encompass several resilience attributes as biodiversity, social networks, institutions, …

Socio-Environmental Modeling In Actionable Science: State-Of-The-Art, Open Challenges And Opportunities, Albert Kettner, Ioannis N. Athanasiadis, Sondoss Elsawah, Tatiana Filatova, Tony Jakeman

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

see uploaded version, using template

A Comparison Of The Temporal Sequencing Of National Gridded Climate Datasets And The Effects Of Climate Input Choice On Simulations Utilizing The Usgs National Hydrologic Model, Jacob Lafontaine, Lauren Hay, Theodore Barnhart, Samuel Saxe

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Census is assessing the current state of water resources for the United States. The literature has consistently shown that various hydrologic models including distributed-parameter process-based, water balance, and statistical, have difficulty simulating hydrologic response in the semi-arid central U.S.; a north-south region from North Dakota to Texas. Inaccurate model simulations may result from inadequate or scarce data (e.g., climate and streamflow data), complex geology, undocumented anthropogenic impacts (water withdrawals or additions), limitations in model conceptualization, or limitations of model parameterization. One measure of hydrologic model performance is the ability to match observed streamflow …

Software Testing A Library And Restful Application Programming Interface For Ecological Pesticide Risk Assessment Models, Tom Purucker, William Eckel, Jonathan Flaishans, Tao Hong, Trip Hook, Andrew Kanarek, Jeffrey M. Minucci, Nicholas Pope, Deron Smith, Sumathy Sinnathamby, Nelson Thurman, Kurt Wolfe

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registers pesticides for use in the United States under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Before a pesticide can be registered, the EPA must assess whether the pesticide can be used without being harmful to humans or posing unreasonable adverse environmental effects. We present a set of ecological risk assessment models commonly used as part of the FIFRA registration process as a software library. These mathematical models predict fate, transport and exposure of pesticides in different media and are designed to be protective of non-target ecological species. Some algorithms in this set have …

Practical Poststructuralism For Confronting Wicked Problems, Vanessa Schweizer, Ricarda Scheele, Hannah Kosow

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper discusses an innovative qualitative-quantitative modelling method relevant to two characteristics of wicked problems: they have no definitive formulation, and the choice of how they are defined or explained determines the nature of their resolution. Through projects conceptualizing the human dimensions of climate change, the socio-technical dynamics of the Energiewende (Germany’s low-carbon energy transition), and of water futures of a megacity (Lima), it has been found that the system-theoretic method of cross-impact balances (CIB) reveals fundamental assumptions in interdisciplinary modelling projects and opens them up for investigation. This can democratize modelling exercises while preserving scientific credibility. It can also …

Automated Urban Parcel Ledger Generation To Track Spatiotemporal Parcel Dynamics, Naci Dilekli, Jennifer Koch

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Urban population growth is expected to continue into the 21st century, bringing about drastic changes to urban landscapes across the globe. Our particular focus is to understand and evaluate urban growth patterns through parcel splitting in the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Area (OKCMA). To this end, we present the background and methodology used to develop the absent land parcel history information in the OKCMA using parcel data from the previous two years. OKCMA multiyear parcel data does not align spatially due to shifts and distortions. We developed a method to identify parent:child parcel relationships using their attribute and geometry information. This …

Long-Term Forecasting Of Nitrogen Dioxide Ambient Levels In Metropolitan Areas Using The Discrete-Time Markov Model, Asaf Nebenzal, Barak Fishbain

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Abstract: Air pollution management and control are key factors in maintaining sustainable societies. Air quality forecasting is a key factor in these tasks. While short-term forecasting, few days into the future, is a well-established research domain, no method exists for long-term forecasting (e.g., what will be the pollution levels distribution in the next year), which is essential for environmental planning and management as well as epidemiological and exposure studies. This research defines long-term air pollution forecasting and presents a Discrete-Time-Markov-based model for forecasting ambient nitrogen oxides patterns. Specifically, the model provides an estimate for the chance for tomorrow’s pollution level, …

Using Hydroshare To Enhance Sharing And Reproducibility Of Research Results, Jeffery S. Horsburgh, David Tarboton, Anthony M. Castronova, Jonathan L. Goodall

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Abstract: HydroShare is a web-based hydrologic information system operated by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI). Within HydroShare, users can create and share data and models using a variety of file formats and flexible metadata. HydroShare enables users to formally publish these resources as well as create linkages between published data and model resources and peer reviewed journal publications that describe them. Ability to link published data and models with the papers that describe them is a great step in the direction of scientific reproducibility, but is only a first step. HydroShare supports further …

Usgs National Hydrologic Model: Continental Scale Modeling For Decision-Making, Research, And Education, Jessica M. Driscoll, Lauren E. Hay, Steve Regan, Steven L. Markstrom, Roland J. Viger, Kyle Juracek, Jacob H. Lafontaine, Parker A. Norton

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A comprehensive understanding of physical processes that affect streamflow is required to effectively manage water resources to meet present and future human and environmental needs. Water resources management from local to national scales can benefit from a consistent, process-based watershed modeling capability. The National Hydrologic Model (NHM), which was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey to support coordinated, comprehensive, and consistent hydrologic modeling at multiple scales for the conterminous United States, provides this essential capability. The NHM fills knowledge gaps in ungaged areas to disseminate nationally-consistent, locally informed, stakeholder relevant results. The NHM provides scientists, water resource managers, and the …

An Environmental Modelling Approach Sheds New Light On A Thorny Problem: Gender Inequality In Science, Kate O'Brien, Paul Maxwell, Terrance Fitzsimmons, Brian Head, Margaret Crane

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Much has been written and said about gender inequality in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM): documenting the phenomenon, proposing a myriad of causes, debating possible solutions, and, most frequently, asking why is progress so slow? In this study, we propose that gender inequality in STEM is not just one problem, but a collection of interconnected, poorly defined problems for which there are no definitive solutions. Sound familiar? The same challenges characterize other wicked problems, such as those faced in modelling and managing socio-ecological systems. Like ecosystem health, gender equality has multiple valid definitions and no single indicator of success. …

Creation Of A Data Model To Retrieve Constrained Watershed Boundaries., Scott Haag, Ali Shokoufandeh, Austin Gentry

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

When using flow direction grids to describe impacts to streams and watershed pour points two spatial scales of interest are commonly applied, the entire watershed and the local stream catchment. In this presentation we describe an alternative approach referred to as the constrained watershed boundary. Specifically, we define a constrained watershed as a polygon containing all the flow direction grid cells with a surface flow distance less than a prescribed threshold. The proposed algorithm builds upon the HSM algorithm, as described by Haag and Shokoufandeh 2017, and augments the data structure with a flow distance grid calculated directly from the …

Development Of Watershed Delineation Tool Using Open Source Software Technologies, Jae Sung Kim, David Arden Patterson

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Watershed delineation tool was developed in the Environmental Resource Assessment & Management System (eRAMS) platform using open source software technologies. This tool processes Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and DEM-driven raster data to delineate watersheds using two open source software technologies, TauDEM and GDAL. Users can upload their own DEM or create one using NHDPlusV2, which is provided by default in eRAMS watershed delineation tool. During processing of the DEM, it was found that the flat area was excluded in the stream raster pixels calculated from TauDEM ‘Peuker Douglas’ module; therefore this module was modified to include stream pixels on flat …

Beyond Streamflow: Improvement Of Distributed Parameters For Continental-Extent Hydrologic Modeling Using Alternative Data Products, Lauren Hay, Jacob Lafontaine, Steven Markstrom, Steven Regan, Jessica Driscoll, William Farmer, Samuel Saxe, Adam Price, Flannery Dolan, Shirley Leung

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The traditional approach to hydrologic model calibration and evaluation—comparing observed and simulated streamflow—is not sufficient. Intermediate process variables computed by the model could be characterized by parameter values that do not necessarily replicate those hydrological processes in the physical system. To better replicate these intermediate processes, in addition to streamflow, intermediate process variables can be examined when there is an associated “observed” variable that can be used as a baseline dataset. This study presents a CONUS-scale parameter estimation technique for the USGS National Hydrologic Model application of the Precipitation-Runoff Modeling System (NHM-PRMS) using five ‘baseline’ data sets (runoff, actual evapotranspiration, …

Towards An Improved Understanding And Management Of Uncertainty In Science Investigations Of Environment Policy Options, Linda Lilburne, Melissa Robson-Williams, Ned Norton, Zeb Etheridge

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water quality issues due to nutrient contamination by intensive agriculture is a good example of a complex problem characterised by conflict and uncertainty. A collaborative approach to setting nutrient limits in catchments in Canterbury, New Zealand has been developed and implemented over the last 6 years. Policy and other non regulatory measures are developed by the regulatory body in collaboration with community stakeholders in a science-informed process. A technical group rely on modelling to provide estimates on the socio-economic, cultural and environmental outcomes under stakeholder specified scenarios. These modelled estimates inform the collaborative nutrient limit-setting process.

There is considerable uncertainty …

Comparative Assessment Of Carbon Footprint Of Four Dairy Farms In Australia Using Dairyghg Model, Veerasamy Sejian Dr, V P. Rashamol Ms, Angela M. Lees Dr, Jarrod C. Lees Dr, John B. Gaghan Dr

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

DairyGHG model is a cost effective and efficient method of estimating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from dairy farms and analyzing how management strategies affect these emissions. Therefore, the DairyGHG model was used in this study to predict the GHG emission and assess the carbon footprints of four different dairy farms at Australia. The study was conducted in four different dairy farms distributed in different locality of Queensland, Australia. The details of the farms are: Farm 1 (220 cows; Jersey), Farm 2 (460 cows; Holstein Friesian), Farm 3 (850 cows; Holstein Friesian) and Farm 4 (434 cows; Holstein Friesian). In all …

Integrating Public/Local And Scientific Knowledge In Model Development For Food-Energy-Water Systems, Grace B. Villamor, David L. Griffith, Andrew Kliskey, Lilian Alessa

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Conceptual and mental models are useful platforms for communicating and understanding how systems work. However, models or frameworks that are not aligned with the perceptions and understanding of the local stakeholders can propagate model output errors and uncertainties. This paper focuses on two sources of epistemic uncertainty in building food-energy-water systems (FEWS) models: (1) context and framing; and (2) model structure uncertainty. To address these uncertainties, we co-construct the FEWS conceptual model with key stakeholders using the Actor-Resources-Dynamics-Interaction (ARDI) method. The method was adopted to specifically integrate public (and local) knowledge of stakeholders in the Magic Valley region of Southern …

A Hybrid Recommender System For Industrial Symbiotic Networks, Anna Gatzioura, Miquel Sànchez-Marrè, Karina Gibert

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Various solutions enabling the realization of synergies in Industrial Symbiotic Networks have been proposed. However, incorporating intelligence into the platforms that these networks use, supporting the involved actors to automatically find possible candidates able to cover their needs, is still of high importance.

Usually, the actors participating in these networks act based on previously predefined patterns, without taking into account all the possible alternatives, usually due to the difficulty of finding and properly evaluating them. Therefore, the recommendation of new matches that the users were not aware of is a big challenge, as companies many times are not willing to …

Moving From Eco-Forecasts To Eco-Projections, Brian W. Miller, Jeffrey T. Morisette, Gregor W. Schuurman, Jamie K. Reaser

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Ecological models can provide estimates of future conditions that are useful for decision-making, including long-term planning and resource prioritization. However, these models often rely on assumptions about ecological relationships and trajectories, forcings (e.g., biophysical conditions), and management approaches that may not be explicitly considered. To make assumptions more transparent, disciplines such as economics, demographics, climatology, and national intelligence make a fairly clear and consistent distinction between “forecasts” and “projections”. Forecasts are typically more near-term and rely on extending existing relationships and trends to estimate the most likely future conditions; whereas projections evaluate conditions under multiple scenarios that are based on …

Cyberinfrastructure For Enhancing Interdisciplinary Engagement In Coastal Risk Management Research, Ayse Karanci, Lisa Stillwell, Christopher Lenhardt, Casey Dietrich

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Today, tackling critical questions often requires the collaboration of researchers from different disciplines or institutions. Coastal hazards research is necessarily interdisciplinary and multi-methodological and often requires a team of researchers. This paper introduces an interdisciplinary coastal hazard risk model which combines high resolution geospatial data, storm impact forecasts, and an agent-based model in the analysis and describes the model’s application in a data science cyberinfrastructure.

The implementation of the coastal hazard risk model in the cyberinfrastructure involved partitioning the model into three parts: 1) Geospatial analyses: analyzes housing developments and the coast to create a household database. (2) Storm evaluation: …

A Modified Approximate Dynamic Programming Algorithm For Community-Level Food Security Following Disasters, Saeed Nozhati, Yugandhar Sarkale, Bruce R. Ellingwood, Edwin K.P. Chong, Hussam Mahmoud

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In the aftermath of an extreme natural hazard, community residents must have access to functioning food retailers to maintain food security. Food security is dependent on supporting critical infrastructure systems, including electricity, potable water, and transportation. An understanding of the response of such interdependent networks and the process of post-disaster recovery is the cornerstone of an efficient emergency management plan. In this study, the interconnectedness among different critical facilities, such as electrical power networks, water networks, highway bridges, and food retailers, is modeled. The study considers various sources of uncertainty and complexity in the recovery process of a community to …

From Data Science To Hydrology: California Reservoirs During Drought, Armeen Taeb

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water is a precious commodity, especially in the state of California. Our state frequently experiences cycles of major state-wide precipitation deficits – most notably the 2012–2015 drought which was the worst to occur in the past 1200 years. The focus of this work is to develop a state-wide model of the California reservoir network to address the following scientific questions: 1) what are the dependencies among reservoirs? 2) Are there unmodeled phenomena (denoted as latent variables) that are influencing the network globally? Could these latent variables cause a system-wide catastrophe (e.g. exhaustion of multiple large reservoirs)?

Since reservoirs are strongly …

Fit For Purpose And Transformative?: A Case Study Of Gender Integration Into International Environmental Modelling Projects, Joyce Wu, Susan Cuddy, Nicky Grigg, Samantha Stone-Jovicich

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A marriage of social and environmental science requires compromise and adaptation. Within the context of gender integration into international environmental modelling projects, the challenge is how to bring about lasting organisational and personal cultural change within the project teams, at the same time embedding principles of gender justice and equality within project activities. At the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), we are implementing an Australian Government funded program, Sustainable Development Investment Portfolio (SDIP), in South Asia. SDIP aims to improve water, food and energy security in the region, with improved livelihoods, women’s empowerment and gender equality among its …

Geographic Process Modeling Based On Geographic Ontology, Yuwei Cao, Yi Huang, Yehua Sheng

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In geo-information science, which has traditionally focused on representations of spatial and temporal information, the representation of geographic processes like soil erosion are becoming more important. Exploring an appropriate method to express a geo-process is significant in revealing its dynamic evolution and underlying mechanisms. This research proposes a process-centric ontology model. It describes geographical environment through three aspects: geographic scene, geographic process and geographic feature. Geographic scene is a unified expression of environment that considers the integrity of geo-processes as well as the spatial temporal pattern of geo-features. Geographic process defines the existing actions of geo-features, and represents spatial, temporal …

How Can We Develop Better Visualization Tool For Aquatic Modelers? Lessons From Developing An Aquatic Model Viewer, Jiacong Huang, Junfeng Gao

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Spatial visualization tool is critically useful to plot and compare the spatio-temporal simulation results from various aquatic models, however, is so far not well developed for free use. In this study, a free visualization tool named Aquatic Model Viewer (AMViewer) was developed using Python programing language for plotting and analyzing the spatio-temporal data from aquatic models. AMViewer included several useful functionalities: (a) comparing the differences of simulation results (e.g., water level) from different scenarios, (b) evaluating the model fits of scenarios with available measured data, (c) extracting time series values of cells from the spatio-temporal simulation results, and (d) viewing …

Managing Forest Disease Spread With Tangible Participatory Models, Devon Gaydos, Anna Petrasova, Vaclav Petras, Richard Cobb, Ross Meentemeyer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Forest diseases fundamentally diminish the health and functioning of our valuable forest resources. Landscape-scale management efforts to reduce disease spread are a priority but can be fraught with questions about how best to allocate limited resources. Management efforts can be greatly enhanced by spatiotemporal models of disease spread which allow the comparison of alternative scenarios. In many cases, however, models are developed without user-friendly interfaces or consideration of stakeholder motivations, fueling a knowledge-practice gap where better science has not necessarily lead to better management. Tangible Landscape, an open-source participatory modeling tool, has been designed to address this challenge. Stakeholders can …

Comparison Of The Glue And Dream Methods For Estimating Variety Parameters For A Maize Crop Modelcomparison Of The Glue And Dream Methods For Estimating Cultivar Parameters For A Maize Crop Model, Meiling Sheng, Junzhi Liu, A-Xing Zhu, Liming Zhu

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Process-based crop models are popular scientific tools to study the impacts of environment, variety and management decisions on crop growth. Some cultivar parameters in crop models cannot be measured directly and need to be estimated. In this research, two Bayesian methods, namely the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) and Differential Evolution Adaptive Metropolis (DREAM) algorithm, were used to estimate the parameters of the maize module of the Agricultural Productions Systems sIMulator (APSIM-Maize) for the first time. Six cultivar parameters of APSIM-Maize were estimated using GLUE and DREAM, respectively. Both the GLUE and DREAM methods were able to give accurate simulations …

An Interoperable Workflow-Based Framework For The Automation Of Building Intelligent Process Control Systems, Josep Pascual Pañach, Miquel Àngel Cugueró Escofet, Miquel Sànchez Marrè, Pere Aguiló Martos

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

One of the major problems to design and implement a control/supervision system for a process lies in the need to establish an ad-hoc system for each process installation. On the other side, an open challenge related to the deployment of Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSSs) is the interoperability of the different methods used, in order to allow interaction and reuse of different data mining methods and the use of methods based on a model or an expert. Thus, this paper proposes the use of visual workflows, to enable the automation of the design task and the implementation of Intelligent Process …

A Bayesian Perspective On Ecohydrologic Model Uncertainties, Lucy Marshall, Yating Tang, Hoori Ajami, Ashish Sharma

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

It is clear that in recent years, Bayesian inference has emerged as a powerful tool in the environmental modeler’s toolbox, providing a convenient framework in which to model parameter and observational uncertainties. However Bayesian approaches require explicit specification of the form of the model errors (via the likelihood function), which can be problematic for complex, non-linear and/or dynamic environmental systems. Here, we provide some insight into these issues in the context of ecohydrologic models. Ecohydrologic models typically integrate hydrological, ecological and energy transfer processes across a range of scales, and the inference of these models can be complicated by the …

Approximate Bayesian Computation For Chemical Screening Model Selection, S. Thomas Purucker, Mike Cyterski, Jeffrey M. Minucci, Sumathy Sinnathamby

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Regulatory screening models for chemical exposure estimation often present conflicting goals. One objective is to minimize the probability that model predictions underestimate dose for individuals in the target population. This can be accomplished in a trivial manner by ratcheting up the degree of conservatism in the model structure and parameterization to produce high exposure estimates. However, to be useful in the screening process, a second contrasting objective is to minimize the degree of over-prediction so that high exposure estimates do not forward lower priority chemicals for additional analyses. We employ a likelihood-free approach, approximate Bayesian computation, to select and parameterize …

Space-Time Uncertainty Propagation Of Input Precipitation Across A Coupled Rainfall-Runoff Urban Drainage Model, Arturo Torres-Matallana, Ulrich Leopold

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Rainfall is one important source of uncertainty in the simulation of combined sewer overflows and the emissions of pollutants to the receiving water body. Studies often ignore the spatial dimension treating input rainfall as a non-spatially distributed time series. Neglecting spatial and space-time distribution of rainfall entering urban drainage systems may result in inaccurate quantification of rainfall and, hence, in substantial uncertainties associated to water quantity and quality predictions. We developed a space-time interpolation model for rainfall, based on space-time Kriging, using point rainfall measurements as the primary variable. We then interpolated rainfall over space and time and built a …