Abstract
The success of Integrated Assessment and Modeling of social-ecological systems (SESs) requires a framework allowing members of this process to share, organize and integrate their knowledge about the system under consideration. To meet this need and ease management of successful modeling processes, we present a conceptual framework for integrated agent-based modeling and simulation of SESs in the form of a formal “entity-process meta-model”, along with a distinction between three levels of models—conceptual, concrete and simulation—and characterization of the research question using indicators and scenarios. We then describe how to represent the structural and dynamic dimensions of SESs into conceptual and concrete models and to derive the simulation model from these two types of models. Finally, we discuss how our framework solves some of the challenges of integrated SES modeling: integration and sharing of heterogeneous knowledge, reliability of simulation results, expressiveness issues, and flexibility of the modeling process.
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Notes
- 1.
In this regard, SES modeling projects do not differ much from common software projects, of which only 39% succeed (delivered on time, on budget, with required features and functions), 43% were challenged (late, over budget or with less than the required features and functions), and 18% failed (cancelled prior to completion or delivered and never used) (Standish Group 2009, 2013).
- 2.
A link is an instance of a relationship between precise entities.
- 3.
In fact, ecological processes also apply to actors, who must have material support to work. For example, human actors are subject to aging. The fact that actors are also a material resource is not shown in Fig. 4.1 for clarity.
- 4.
Thus, models deal only with “entity types” and “entity instances”, using the term “entity” when there is no ambiguity. The same holds for relationships, although relationship instances are preferably called “links”.
- 5.
- 6.
In software engineering, research in the 1990s to improve software development by reusing code shifted towards model-driven development approaches and reuse of software models (Robinson et al. 2004; Schmidt 2006). Indeed, models favor an integrated view to tackle “wicked” problems, in which the problem itself is not well-understood until a solution is developed.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been funded by the Thematic Network for Advanced Research “Sciences & Technologies for Aeronautics and Space” (RTRA STAE http://fondation-stae.net/) in Toulouse, France, under the MAELIA project.
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Appendix
Appendix
Outline of the MAELIA simulation platform that is organised according to the Entity-Process Framework. The full details and documentation are available on the MAELIA web-site http://maelia-platform.inra.fr/ (in French; Accessed 22 May 2018).
1.1 Entities
Reading the complete actors-resources diagram of the MAELIA platform is simplified by grouping entities into four parts or “modules”. Each actor or resource (of which we give here only the labels) are endowed with attributes and operations (see below). The documentation also provides an overview description and the Actors-Resources diagram.
Agricultural Module
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Actors’ labels: farmers;
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Cognitive resources’ labels: field bloc; irrigation bloc; cultivated species; cropping plan; cropping system; crop management strategy; weather area;
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Material resources’ labels: crop; farm; islet; irrigation device; field; water withdrawal device; agricultural soil;
Hydrology Module
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Labels of material resources: dam; channel; homogeneous response unit; stream; groundwater; local reservoir ; hydrological soil; hydrological zone; average weathering zone;
Regulation Module
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Actors’ labels: dam manager; agricultural water manager; water policy;
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Cognitive resources’ labels: administrative sector; monitoring point; management unit; administrative zone;
Other uses Module
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Actors’ labels: district; industries;
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Material resources’ labels: domestic withdrawal device; industrial water withdrawal device; domestic reject device; industrial reject device;
1.2 Processes
The labels of the main processes dynamically linking the entities (and programmed in the platform) are listed below. The documentation also provides an overview description of each modelled process and the corresponding interaction diagram.
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Description of the scheduling of process activation ((by the simulator engine))
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Description of the model initialisation
Agricultural Module
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Cropping plan decision process;
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Soil-Crop Dynamics (2 alternatives models): “AqYield” (plant growth model, initially set for field crops); simple plant dynamics;
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Water withdrawal;
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Crop Management Strategy: plowing; sowing; hoeing; irrigation; harvest;
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External processes: field area change; farm economy; cropping plan (as data);
Hydrology Module
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Chanel hydrology;
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Hydrology (2 alternative models): hydrology simple model; SWAT model: [includes: land phase; water routing phase; local reservoir fulling];
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External processes: input flow; weather;
Regulation Module
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Withdrawal volume allocation; control and sanction; edict drought decree; dam water release
Other uses module
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Domestic water withdrawal; industrial water withdrawal; domestic water reject; industrial water reject;
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External process: population growth;
1.3 Template for the Description of an Entity
- Definition :
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System reference’ element to which it refers, role, scale;
- Activities :
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for actors only;
- Attributes :
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Name, public/private; description; data type, unit, variable/constant; read/write process accesses;
- Links :
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Name; description; target entity; read/write process accesses;
- Operations :
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Name, public/private; functional description; input/output parameters; formal description;
- Initialisation :
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Link to the Pre-processing section;
- Discussion :
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Explanation of the modelling choices, …
- References :
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References to external documents (if required);
- Implementation :
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Description of implementation details (only for the modellers);
1.4 Template for the Description of a Process
- Definition :
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Purpose, internal/external;
- Scale :
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Temporal, spatial scale(s) (if relevant);
- Interface :
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Type, identity and attributes of accessed entities;
- Scheduling :
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If applies to several entities;
- Formal definition :
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Specification for implementation;
- Validation :
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Results of sensitivity analysis, calibration, …
- Discussion :
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Explanation of the modelling choices, …;
- References :
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References to external documents (if required);
- Implementation :
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Description of implementation details (only for the project’s members);
Documentation provides further information on the following topics:
- Pre-processing :
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Description of the data sources and processing to generate each of the input files for model initialisation and external processes;
- Indicators :
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Available for everyone, information source entities and computation method;
- Scenarios :
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For each scenario, one overview page and explanations about the differences with the standard (baseline) model;
- Glossary :
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Definition of technical terms, parameters, acronyms, etc.
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Sibertin-Blanc, C., Therond, O., Monteil, C., Mazzega, P. (2019). The Entity-Process Framework for Integrated Agent-Based Modeling of Social-Ecological Systems. In: Boulet, R., Lajaunie, C., Mazzega, P. (eds) Law, Public Policies and Complex Systems: Networks in Action. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 42. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11506-7_4
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