Computer Engineering Commons^™

Improving Component Interoperability And Reusability With The Java Connection Framework (Jcf): Overview And Application To The Ages-W Environmental Model, James C. Ascough Ii, Nathan P. Lighthart, Holm Kipka, Olaf David, Timothy R. Green, Gregory S. Mcmaster

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental modeling framework (EMF) design goals are multi-dimensional and often include many aspects of general software framework development. Many functional capabilities offered by current EMFs are closely related to interoperability and reuse aspects. For example, an EMF needs to support development productivity and interoperability with other modeling tools, protocols, and programming languages, thereby minimizing overall integration effort. Facilitating data exchange between modules, classes, or components representing parts of a whole model is also an essential EMF feature. In general, EMFs should enable flexible model development rather than enforce complex and rigid development concepts. Additionally, full-featured EMFs should enable module connectivity …

Watermark: An Open-Source Platform For Federated Decision Support Systems And Applications To Integrated Environmental Problems, Rebecca Teasley, Nalbeat Kwon, John Gentle, Suzanne Pierce

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Federated data services and interactive workspaces for integrated modeling and advanced decision support will transform the practice of transdisciplinary research and improve science-based communication with decision makers and stakeholders. Integrated models are needed and they must be developed in a way that streamlines comparative analyses and makes them accessible to users. This research advances a framework of accessible computational tools for connecting data and models through reusable workflows and interactive decision support dashboards.

The prototype application, called Watermark, is used to analyze and apply integrated methods to an urban groundwater management problem. Watermark’s interactive mapping tools and touch-enabled interfaces for …

The Regard Project Brings 4 Platforms Together To Assess The State Of The Garonne River Catchment (France) - Integrating Remote Sensing Data With Hydrological And Human Activities Modeling, Sabine Sauvage, Eric Martin, Gregory Espitalier-Noël, Jordi Etchanchu, Youen Grusson, Romain Lardy, Pierre Le Cointe, François Moussu, Lucie Portier, Salwa Belaqziz, Camille Truche, Moussa Mballo, François Anctil, Mélanie Bardeau, Sylvain Biancamaria, Jacques Chorda, Simon Gascoin, Patrick Le Moigne, Ludovic Lhuissier, Clément Murgue, Sophie Ricci, Olivier Therond

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In many watersheds, water resource states depend on human activities and interactions between different hydrological compartments including rivers, aquifers, reservoirs, soil and snow. High human withdrawals may cause difficulties for the management of low water periods. The project REGARD aims at showing how remote sensing data and information on human activity, combined with hydrological modelling, can provide a high spatial (some kilometres) and temporal resolution (daily) view of the water resources dynamics. Formalism of environmental and human activities are implemented into four hydrological modelling platform dealing with different space and time scales in order to simulate interactions between all the …

Global Monitoring Plan Data Warehouse As A Tool For Worldwide Assessment Of Persistent Organic Pollution, Jiří Kalina, Jiří Hřebíček, Richard Hůlek, Jana Borůvková, Jana Klánová

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In 2004 the Stockholm Convention came into force, which eliminates a manufacture and use of persistent organic pollutants. Global Monitoring Plan is an important executive component of the convention, providing framework for an evaluation of its effectiveness. It ensures collection of comparable monitoring data on POPs from around the world in order to identify changes in POPs concentrations over time and their eventual transport. There are several programs focused on a monitoring of persistent organic pollutants in diverse environmental matrices over the globe, each working with a different methodology of sampling and analyses. Results of these programs are reported in …

Investigating The Street Canyon Vegetation Effects Using The Moment Method, Viktor Šíp, Luděk Beneš

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper we investigate the effects of the vegetation inside a street canyon. Flow through and around the standalone street canyon is calculated using a CFD solver based on the Reynoldsaveraged Navier-Stokes equations. The dispersion of the pollutant is computed using the moment method that models the behaviour of the particle size distribution. Resulting pollutant concentrations for several wind conditions and for configurations without and with the trees are compared to the wind tunnel measurements. Using the deposition velocity model for the moment method, the effect of the dry deposition on the vegetation is then assessed. Three modes of …

Model Requirements For Decision Support Under Uncertainty In Data Scarce Dynamic Deltas, Marjolijn Haasnoot, Willem Van Deursen, Jan Kwakkel, Hans Middelkoop

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

There is a long tradition of model-based decision support in water management. The consideration of deep uncertainty, however, changes the requirements imposed on models.. In the face of deep uncertainty, models are used to explore many uncertainties and the decision space across multiple outcomes of interest. This requires a model that runs fast, making it necessary to do concessions in the resolution including spatial, temporal and process information. For delta management under uncertainty, a model should capture all relevant changes, processes, actions, and feedbacks over time and produce relevant outcomes for stakeholders; thus it requires an integrated and dynamic model. …

Indexmed Projects: New Tools Using The Cigesmed Database On Coralligenous For Indexing, Visualizing And Data Mining Based On Graphs, Romain David, Jean-Pierre Féral, Anne-Sophie Archambeau, Nicolas Bailly, Cyrille Blanpain, Vincent Breton, Aurélien De Jode, Aurélie Delavaud, Alrick Dias, Sophie Gachet, Dorian Guillemain, Julien Lecubin, Geneviève Romier, Christian Surace, Laure Thierry De Ville D’Avray, Christos Arvanitidis, Anne Chenuil, Melih Ertan Ҫinar, Drosos Koutsoubas, Stéphane Sartoretto, Thierry Tatoni

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Data produced by the SeasEra CIGESMED project (Coralligenous based Indicators to evaluate and monitor the "Good Environmental Status" of the MEDiterranean coastal waters) have a high potential to be used by several stakeholders involved in environmental management. A new consortium called IndexMed whose task is to index Mediterranean biodiversity data, makes it possible to build graphs in order to analyse the CIGESMED data and develop new ways for data mining of coralligenous data. This paper presents the prototypes under development that test the ability of graphs dataBases and tools to connect biodiversity objects with non-centralized data. This project explores the …

Integrating Organizational Risk Analysis And Participatory Network Mapping For Flood Risk Management, R. Giordano, S. M. Hernandez Lopez, R. Olivo Del Amo, E. S. Lafuente, I. Pluchinotta, A. Pagano

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The complexity of the interaction network among the different actors involved in flood risk management makes it difficult for risk managers to fully understand the different interconnections among the key elements, i.e. actors, knowledge and tasks. Due to their limited understanding of the network, the risk managers fail to strengthen the social capital embedded in the network, reducing its role in supporting risk management. A method based on the integration between Organization Risk Analysis and Participatory Network Mapping is described in this work. The method aims at enhancing the risk managers’ understanding of the interaction network and, in doing so, …

Informing Adaptive Strategies For The Colorado Basin, David Groves, Robert Lempert, Jordan Fischbach, Evan Bloom

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Colorado River is the single most important source of water in the southwestern United States, providing water and power for nearly 40 million people and water to irrigate more than five million acres of farmland across seven states and for 22 Native American tribes. A vast physical and institutional infrastructure exists to provide water, as well as hydropower, recreational opportunities, environmental services, and other benefits to all these users. However, increasing demand, a decade of drought, and expectations of a significantly changing future climate have put the system under significant and deeply uncertain stress. This paper employs and extends …

Hydra Platform: A Web-Based Data Management System To Facilitate Integration In Network Resource Modelling., Stephen Knox, Philipp Meier, Khaled Mohamed, Julien Harou, Brett Korteling, Josue Medellin-Azuara, David Rosenberg, Amaury Tilmant, Andy Chow, Tohid Efrani, Manuel Pulido-Velazquez

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The planning and management of engineered resource systems often involves applying multiple modelling approaches to the same system. These models can broaden the scope of decision making, giving owners/investors a better picture of the costs and effects of future assets or policy changes. Combining multiple different modelling paradigms is a challenge as many models operate on different time scales and have different input data requirements. One approach to combining models is to create a central data structure, to which each model connects via a specialised interface, transforming the centrally stored data into the appropriate input structure for the model and …

Combined Recursive Clustering And Partitioning To Define Optimal Dmas Of Water Distribution Networks, A. Di Nardo, M. Di Natale, S. Chianese, D. Musmarra, G. F. Santonastaso

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

As known, the water network partitioning in district meter areas (DMAs) is one of the most effective way to improve water loss detection, pressure management and user protection from accidental and intentional contamination. Nevertheless, the definition of permanent DMAs is very complex because can drastically change the hydraulic performance of a network, since the insertion of gate valves in several pipes can reduce its energy and topological redundancy. In the last years, some optimization procedures, based on graph theory, network analysis and heuristic optimization methods, allowed to overcame the empirical approaches traditionally adopted to define the permanent district meter areas …

From Raw Material To Biofuel Demand: The Agraf Model, Coline Assaiante, Pierre-Alain Jayet, Frédérick Lantz

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The search for energetic independence, for boosting local economies and for reducing polluting emissions, has supported bioenergy’s development and biofuels in particular. Mandatory biofuels incorporation rates have been recently established in several countries, including the European Union, in order to promote the use of renewable energetic resources in spite of several criticisms toward biofuels relating to their impacts on food security, the environment and the conflicts associated with resource allocations. To study existing concerns on the growth, the profitability, the limiting factors biofuels, as well as the impacts of current policies in force, a highly parameterized operational modelling tool (AGRAF) …

Monitoring Agricultural Landscapes Dynamics Using The Complementarities Of Optical, Microwave And Thermal Remote Sensing Data, Cheul Benoît, Coudert Benoit, Baup Frederic

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The goal of this study is to establish links between crop trajectories (governed by environmental conditions and agricultural practices) and the ability of optical, radar and thermal imagery to inform water budget, crop phenology and biomass characteristics. The perspective of this study is to take advantage of the three main domains of wavelength to sequentially constrain static (parameters) and dynamic variables of agrometeorological and SVAT (Soil Vegetation Atmosphere Transfers) models for water budget and biomass simulation. As of now, only the association of microwave or thermal infrared with visible optical data are considered to instantaneously estimate information of the surface …

Cfd Simulation Of Snow Fences, S. J. Wakes

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Snow fences play a significant role in transporting snow away from roads, buildings and recreational areas. Although some guidelines for fence design exist these are mostly empirical in nature and are potentially difficult to apply in complex terrain and for multiple fences scenarios. Numerical modelling of the wind flow and snow transportation using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has the potential to allow site-specific topographies to be considered with multiple fence designs for optimisation. Manipulation of the snowfield to emulate climate change effects in New Zealand for a long term ecology monitoring project involved two angled porous fences set up with …

In Situ Data Visualization Of Acme Land Model Simulations, Yu Pei, Benjamin Hernandez, Dali Wang, Brian Smith, Scott Atchley, Fengming Yuan, Chad Steed

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

With the ever increasing precision and complexity of various environmental models, writing large volumes of [email protected] to disk for post-processing becomes a huge bottleneck, and simulation modules diagnostic and tracking become difficult for scientists as well. In this paper, we propose a loosely coupled in situ visualization framework to address these problems when working with a representative land model within the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME). ACME land model (ALM) simulates energy, water, carbon nitrogen fluxes and state variables for various land surfaces. Loosely coupled in situ framework means simulation and visualization communicate through network, while tightly coupled means …

Location, Identification, And Low Complexity Tracking Algorithms With An Image Compression Strategy For A Long Term Multi-Tracking Application, Ramon Reig-Bolaño, Pere Marti-Puig, Moisès Serra-Serra

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A biological experiment that requires a continuous tracking of a group of 10 to 20 fish specimens was designed to obtain empirical data to estimate biological energy models from specimen’s activity. The surface in which specimens can move is enormous (2,5m x 5m) in comparison to the sizes of the individuals and it is mandatory to work with high resolution images in order to cover all the area. Furthermore, as each experiment must work uninterruptedly during fifteen days the cost of storing and post-processing all the generated information in its rough form is prohibitive, incurring into a big data problem. …

Contribution Of Remote Sensing Data To Hydrological Simulations: Case Of The Garonne Catchment In The South-West Of France, Grégory Espitalier-Noël, José-Miguel Sanchez-Perez, Youen Grusson, François Anctil, Mélanie Bardeau, Sylvain Biancamaria, Simon Gascoin, Pierre Le Cointe, Patrick Le Moigne, Moussa Mballo, François Moussu, Eric Martin, Sabine Sauvage

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

(Semi-)Distributed hydrological models often poorly simulate all reservoirs in sub-basins because they rather focus on obtaining a correct streamflow at sub-basin’s outlet. In situ networks are point based estimates of a flux and their locations are not always dense enough to validate reservoirs at the model spatial scale. Remote sensing data, however, can provide spatially distributed information on a specific reservoir (with less accuracy than in situ measurements) and are an alternative source of data to calibrate and evaluate model outputs, which can only be performed with (semi-)distributed hydrological models. We present a comparison between remote sensing data and hydrological …

Co2 Emissions Scenarios From A Database Of Diverse Socio-Economic Pathways, Céline Guivarch, Julie Rozenberg, Vanessa Schweizer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Shared Socio-economic Pathways, or SSPs, are the next generation of socio-economic scenarios following the SRES. The SSP framework recognizes that different socio-economic conditions may lead to similar levels of emissions, or radiative forcing. This implies that any given level of radiative forcing may have very different socio-economic impacts depending on the conditions associated with it. To uncover different socio-economic conditions associated with any level of radiative forcing, we propose a methodology based on “scenario discovery” cluster analysis. With a database of hundreds of scenarios, we demonstrate how this method can identify very different groups of socio-economic scenarios sharing common …

Integrating Landscape Structure Into Participatory Bayesian Network Models Of Habitat Suitability, J. G. Froese, C. S. Smith, C. A. Mcalpine, P. A. Durr, R. D. Van Klinken

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Species distribution and habitat suitability models are widely used to inform decisions about conservation, resource or invasion management. Bayesian networks (BN) have received increasing attention in environmental modelling and habitat suitability modelling. Some important advantages of BNs are: a) they lend themselves to a participatory modelling framework including calibration from expert knowledge, explicit treatment of uncertain or missing knowledge and scenario analysis for decision support; b) they model responses specifically from interactions of influential habitat variables rather than statistical correlations; and c) recent advances have greatly simplified spatially-explicit applications (PMAT, https://github.com/DriesLanduyt/PMAT, QUICKScan, http://www.quickscan.pro or GeoNeticaTM, https://www.norsys.com). However, limited …

Replicability Of A Modelling Solution Using Newage-Jgrass, Marialaura Bancheri, Giuseppe Formetta, Francesco Serafin, Riccardo Rigon, Timothy R. Green, Olaf David

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

NewAge-JGrass is a semi-distributed hydrological modelling system. It is based on the object-oriented modelling framework (OMS version 3), on the JGrasstools and on the Geotools. To make it more effective, it is interoperable with many other tools such as R-project, gvSIG GIS, GitHub and other collaborative sharing tools, such as Authorea.

OMS3 allows to create science simulation components, which are implemented with a standard, well-defined purpose and interface. The encapsulation of the source code in components make them easier to be inspected and its copyleft license allows the easy access to the code, its use and its improvement. The components …

Effectiveness Of Incentives To Promote Adoption Of Water Sensitive Urban Design: A Case Study On Rain Water Harvesting Tanks, M. S. Iftekhar, C. Urich, S. Schilizzi, A. Deletic

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) often consists of decentralized multi-functional technologies which are capable of producing both private and public benefits. However, private costs often outweigh private benefits, and therefore agencies must often provide incentives to encourage adoption of such technologies. Scarce resources also require cost-effective schemes. However, there is a lack of comprehensive analysis of the performance of incentive schemes to promote WSUD. In this paper, we develop an agent-based model to study the effectiveness of an incentive scheme to promote adoption of rain water tanks. Using a case-study based on Melbourne, we study how its cost-effectiveness changes with …

Group-Based Crop Change Planning: Application Of Smartscapetm Spatial Decision Support System For Resolving Conflicts, Amin Tayyebi, Jamal J. Arsanjani, Amir H. Tayyebi, Hichem Omrani, Hossein S. Moghadam

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agricultural changes are complex and managing an appropriate type of crop change to satisfy stakeholders with various interests is challenging. Decisions regarding a crop change need to be debated among multiple stakeholders with various conflicting viewpoints. Two kinds of conflicts might occur as a result of crop change in an agricultural landscape: 1) conflicts among multiple ecosystem services i.e., internal conflicts and 2) conflicts among multiple stakeholders i.e., external conflicts. In this study, we held a series of meetings with stakeholders, who were experts in economics, energy, soil erosion, greenhouse gas emission, surface water, and biodiversity, to develop two crop …

Predictive Species Distribution Models Of Three Range-Expanding Mammal Species In Japan, Shinji Fukuda, Shiho Saito, Koji Osato, Koichi Kaji

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Three mammal species, namely sika deer (Cervus nippon), wild boar (Sus scrofa), and Japanese monkey (Macaca fuscata), have been rapidly expanding their distribution ranges in the last 50 years, and are heavily impacting agriculture and forestry in Japan. This paper aims to demonstrate how random forests can be applied as a tool for predictive modelling of the spatial distributions of the three species recorded in 1978 and 2004. Twenty one habitat variables regarding landuse, topographic and climatic factors were considered when modelling the species distributions. In order to understand controlling factors of their distributions …

Constraint Programming Versus Mip For Lca-Based Multi-Objective Optimization Of Sustainable Potable Water Production Plants, Florin Capitanescu, Antonino Marvuglia, Enrico Benetto, Aras Ahmadi, Ligia Tiruta-Barna

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Many real-world multi-objective optimization (MOO) problems rely on computationally expensive simulators of industrial processes and require solutions within a limited time budget. In this context, we propose a heuristic approach which aims at building a surrogate problem model, solvable by computationally efficient optimization methods, in order to quickly provide a sufficiently accurate estimation of the Pareto front. The proposed approach generates a multi-objective mixed-integer programming (MO-MIP) proxy model of the MOO problem using sensitivity-based piece-wise linear approximation of objectives and constraints. The approximation of the Pareto front is obtained by applying the ε-constraint method to the multi-objective surrogate problem, …

Parameterizing Bayesian Networks With A Game: A Case-Study From North-Eastern Madagascar, Enrico Celio, Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In participatory modeling, actors are a main source of information and at the same time users of the model outputs. Many different approaches have been applied for incorporating actors into modeling processes. While games have proven to be valuable as a mean for parameterizing agent- based models, they have never been used to parameterize Bayesian networks even though Bayesian networks have been extensively used in participatory approaches.

The reasons for the absence of gaming approaches in the parameterization of Bayesian networks are potentially two-fold: (1) assessing of the conditional probabilities in the network is complex as, both, probability and conditions …

Numerical Modelling Of Particle Capture Efficiency And Fine Particles Sampling With Series Impaction Sizer, C-H Huang, Y-Y Chang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Numerical modelling of particle capture efficiency and fine particles sampling are important for designing a series impaction sizer. This study generated liquid particles using an ultrasonic atomizing nozzle to examin the particle capture efficiency of the series impaction sizer. The aerosol number concentrations of the inlet and outlet of the series impaction sizer were measured by an aerodynamic particle sizer. Numerical analysis including the flow field of the impaction sizer was calculated by solving the Navier-Stokes equations in the cylindrical coordinate and the governing equations were discretized by means of the finite volume method. The particle equations of motion in …

One Dimensional Riverine Water Quality Modeling System (Hec-Ras/Nsm), Billy E. Johnson, Zhonglong Zhang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The transport of nutrients from watersheds to aquatic resources (streams and rivers, lakes and reservoirs, and coastal zones) directly influences their environmental quality and ecosystem. While this is a natural process, excessive inputs from anthropogenic sources (e.g., intensive agriculture) can exceed the assimilative capacity and resilience of aquatic ecosystems. The result is accelerated rates of eutrophication and destabilized ecological communities susceptible to the establishment of invasive species or to changes in food web structure, loss of valuable habitat, threats to human health, and reduced economic and societal benefits. As part of the Ecosystem Management and Restoration Research Program (EMRRP), a …

‘Plain-View’ Earth System Simulation, Christian Neuwirth

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Hard-coded models of the earth system are typically perceived as ‘black boxes’, which are unserviceable by anyone other than those who developed the model. This constitutes a constraint to open innovation and cross-disciplinary model building. Likewise, the use of icon-based solutions is restricted by inappropriate performance on a larger spatial scale. This contribution, introduces a middleware program for the synchronization of icon-based software with GIS software. Parallel programming is used to boost simulation performance. In contrast to mainstream modeling environments such as SIMILE or NOVA, spatiotemporal modeling capabilities are supported by GIS interoperability. This enables interactive spatial analyses, access to …

Water Resources Decision Support Under Deep Uncertainty: A Classification Of Model-­Based Frameworks And Challenges For Scenario Discovery, J. Herman, P. Reed, H. Zeff, G. Characklis

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Recent work in water systems planning has focused on exploratory “bottom-­up” decision support frameworks, which aim to identify robust solutions capable of withstanding deviations from the conditions for which they were designed. Here we organize these frameworks according to their methods of (1) alternative generation, (2) sampling of states of the world, (3) quantification of robustness measures, and (4) machine learning and sensitivity analysis methods to identify influential uncertainties. We demonstrate these methods using an urban water portfolio planning problem in North Carolina, a region whose water supply faces both climate and population pressures. The task of scenario sampling poses …

Pre-Processing Scada Data From Wind Turbines As A Previous Stage To The Application Of Prognosis Algorithms, Alejandro Blanco, Juan José Cárdenas, Isaac Justicia, Jordi Solé-Casals, Pere Marti-Puig

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Modern wind turbines in operation today record more than 200 analogous variables at intervals of 5 to 10 minutes by their SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system. The SCADA data often comprise temperature values from a variety of measurement positions in the turbine, pressure data, electrical quantities such as line currents and voltages or pitch-motor currents, tower vibration, etc. The Wind Turbine’s data pre-processing is a task that faces diverse difficulties. The main are the atypical values produced by a miss configuration of the SCADA, the information lost about the alarms states (activations/deactivations) and the information loss when the …