Integrating economic values and catchment modelling

Integrated catchment policies are widely used to manage natural resources in Australian catchments. Decision support tools available to aid integrated catchment management are often limited in their integration of environmental processes with socio-economic systems. Fully integrated models are required to support assessments of the environmental and economic trade-offs of catchment management changes. A Bayesian Network (BN) model is demonstrated to provide a suitable approach to integrate environmental modelling with economic valuation. The model incorporates hydrological, ecological and economic models for the George catchment in Tasmania. Information about the non-market costs and benefits of environmental changes is elicited using Choice Experiments, allowing an assessment of the efficiency of alternative management scenarios.Integrated catchment modelling, Bayesian networks, Uncertainty, Environmental values, Non-market valuation, Choice Modelling.,

Integrated Hydro-Economic Modelling: Challenges and Experiences in an Australian Catchment

Integrated catchment policies are widely used to manage natural resources in Australian catchments. Integration of environmental processes with socio-economic systems is often difficult due to the limitations of decision support tools. To support assessments of the environmental and economic trade-offs of changes in catchment management, fully integrated models are needed. This research demonstrates a Bayesian Network (BN) approach to integrating environmental modelling with economic valuation. The model incorporates hydrological, ecological and economic models for the George catchment in Tasmania. Choice experiments were used to elicit information about the non-market costs and benefits of environmental changes. This allows the efficiency of alternative management scenarios to be assessed.Hydro-economic modelling, Integrated catchment modelling, Ecological modelling, Valuation, Bayesian networks, Water quality, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

The architecture and prototype implementation of the Model Environment system

International audienceAn approach that simplifies software development of the model based decision support systems for environmental management has been introduced. The approach is based on definition and management of metadata and data related to computational model without losing data semantics and proposed methods of integration of the new modules into the information system and their management. An architecture of the integrated modelling system is presented. The proposed architecture has been implemented as a prototype of integrated modelling system using. NET/Gtk{#} and is currently being used to re-design European Decision Support System for Nuclear Emergency Management RODOS (http://www.rodos.fzk.de) using Java/Swing

A Methodology for a Performance Information Model to support Facility Management

Current facility management practice relies on different systems which require new technologies to integrate and manage information more easily. Building information modeling offers a good opportunity to improve facility information management by providing a unified platform for various data sources rather than an intuitive information interface. Although current research trends reveal that there is a continuously growing interest in facility management aided by building information modeling, an integrated model is still hard to obtain. This paper aims at developing a novel methodology based on building information modeling and facility management systems integration, underpinned by a performance information model. The implementation process of a performance information model is described, including information technologies involved, the data and process requirements, and the building performance assessment methods used. A first pilot case-study has been conducted with regards to surgery rooms in healthcare buildings. The proposal can support condition-based maintenance work schedule, as well as the achievement of organizational, environmental, and technical requirements. Among the practical implications found: Improved technological and environmental performances assessment; better visualization of building condition; improved decision-making process; facilitated maintenance tasks planning and maintenance records management

MODELING OF AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS

The authors present an overview of agricultural systems models. Beginning with why systems are modeled and for what purposes, the paper examines types of agricultural systems and associated model types. The broad categories range from pictorial (iconic) models to descriptive analogue models to symbolic (usually mathematical) models. The uses of optimization versus non-optimizing mechanistic models are reviewed, as are the scale and aggregation challenges associated with scaling up from the plant cell to the landscape or from a farm enterprise to a world market supply-demand equilibrium Recent modeling developments include the integration of formerly stand-alone biophysical simulation models, increasingly with a unifying spatial database and often for the purpose of supporting management decisions. Current modeling innovations are estimating and incorporating environmental values and other system interactions. At the community and regional scale, sociological and economic models of rural community structure are being developed to evaluate long-term community viability. The information revolution is bringing new challenges in delivering agricultural systems models over the internet, as well as integrating decision support systems with the new precision agriculture technologies.Farm Management,

Top management perception of strategic information processing in a turbulent environment

Extant strategic management literature provides only partial answer to the important question: What variables affect top managers\u27 ability to process complicated, novel, ambiguous, or dynamic strategic information in a turbulent environment? Drawn upon cognitive psychology, personality theory, management theory, organizational theory, and management information systems literatures, this paper proposes that nine personal attributes and four contextual attributes affect top managers\u27 information processing capability. The nine personal attributes are: cognitive complexity, knowledge, mental model of success, open-mindedness, time orientation, personal values, tolerance for ambiguity, locus of control, and time devoted to environmental scanning. The four contextual attributes are: rewards and incentives, culture, structure of strategic planning process, and executive support systems. Thirteen propositions are postulated regarding the types of attributes that are conducive for top managers\u27 ability in processing complicated, novel, ambiguous, or dynamic information

Integrated assessment of four strategies for solving water imbalance in an agricultural landscape

International audienceAbstractWater imbalances are an environmental, social, and economic problem in many agricultural watersheds, including those in temperate climates. Structural changes are recommended because crisis management, through water restrictions, is not sustainable. However, the content of these changes is debated, especially because their impacts concern different sectors and stakeholders and are uncertain. MAELIA is an integrated assessment and modeling platform, which combines a multi-agent model with a geographic information system; it represents fine-scale interactions among water, water management, and agricultural systems, accounting for daily irrigation decisions on each field and effects of the corresponding water withdrawals on water flows. In this article, for the first time, we investigated the effectiveness of some of the most popular strategies aimed at solving water imbalances considering environmental, water management, and agricultural indicators calculated with MAELIA. The alternatives we assessed were (i) reducing the irrigated area, (ii) assisting irrigation with decision-support tools, (iii) implementing crop rotations, and (iv) merging water storage into large reservoirs. Simulations were run for the 2001–2013 period on a case-study area, the downstream Aveyron watershed. We show that, in this area, the decision-support tool and crop-rotation alternatives drastically decreased irrigation withdrawals and required fewer restrictions and flow-support releases. However, those two alternatives had different impacts on the environment and farming systems: decision-support tools cost almost nothing for farming systems and improved environmental indicators slightly, while crop rotations had greater potential for long-term environmental preservation but degraded local and farm economies in the current context. The uniqueness of this study comes from using a fine-scale mechanistic model to assess, in an integrated way, the impacts of politically debated water management strategies that were previously only assessed in terms of potential withdrawal reduction

Support Vector Machine in Prediction of Building Energy Demand Using Pseudo Dynamic Approach

Building's energy consumption prediction is a major concern in the recent years and many efforts have been achieved in order to improve the energy management of buildings. In particular, the prediction of energy consumption in building is essential for the energy operator to build an optimal operating strategy, which could be integrated to building's energy management system (BEMS). This paper proposes a prediction model for building energy consumption using support vector machine (SVM). Data-driven model, for instance, SVM is very sensitive to the selection of training data. Thus the relevant days data selection method based on Dynamic Time Warping is used to train SVM model. In addition, to encompass thermal inertia of building, pseudo dynamic model is applied since it takes into account information of transition of energy consumption effects and occupancy profile. Relevant days data selection and whole training data model is applied to the case studies of Ecole des Mines de Nantes, France Office building. The results showed that support vector machine based on relevant data selection method is able to predict the energy consumption of building with a high accuracy in compare to whole data training. In addition, relevant data selection method is computationally cheaper (around 8 minute training time) in contrast to whole data training (around 31 hour for weekend and 116 hour for working days) and reveals realistic control implementation for online system as well.Comment: Proceedings of ECOS 2015-The 28th International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems , Jun 2015, Pau, Franc

Supporting deconstruction practices with information systems using ethnographic-action research

Socio-environmental pressures motivate the construction industry to adopt working practices that enable the reuse of building elements. Deconstruction, as an alternative to demolition, is a major lever for more efficient resource management and enables closed-loop material cycles. Information systems have potential benefits for deconstruction practices, but their implementations are limited by a lack of understanding on how demolition workers create, exchange and communicate information and what artefacts they thereby use. This research has therefore two goals: understanding on-site information requirements in deconstruction projects and exploring how information systems can be iteratively developed and implemented into these project contexts. Through applying an ethnographic-action research methodology on a real-world deconstruction project, two information systems are iteratively developed and implemented: (I) a virtual environment to support tagging façade elements, and (II) a 4D model to support deconstruction planning. Insights are provided – firstly – into deconstruction routines and the tacit knowledge that demolition workers possess and use to deal with these routines, and – secondly – into how the two information systems supported the practitioners in their ongoing project works. These ethnographic-action perspectives provide new ways for researchers and practitioners to support deconstruction practices with information systems

Hypermedia Knowledge Management for Intelligent Organizations

Using a simple model consisting of individual knowledge bases, organization knowledge bases, organization actions, and environment responses, hypermedia is investigated as a technology for knowledge management in intelligent organizations. Cognitive mapping, issue-based information systems, and generalized hypertext methods are reviewed before proposing desirable features of hypermedia organization knowledge management. These desirable features include a variety of typed hypertext nodes and links, process memory, learning support, and both automated and user-directed manipulation of knowledge bases. Interactions of the knowledge bases with organization actions and environmental responses are also discussed