Architecture of Environmental Risk Modelling: for a faster and more robust response to natural disasters

Demands on the disaster response capacity of the European Union are likely to increase, as the impacts of disasters continue to grow both in size and frequency. This has resulted in intensive research on issues concerning spatially-explicit information and modelling and their multiple sources of uncertainty. Geospatial support is one of the forms of assistance frequently required by emergency response centres along with hazard forecast and event management assessment. Robust modelling of natural hazards requires dynamic simulations under an array of multiple inputs from different sources. Uncertainty is associated with meteorological forecast and calibration of the model parameters. Software uncertainty also derives from the data transformation models (D-TM) needed for predicting hazard behaviour and its consequences. On the other hand, social contributions have recently been recognized as valuable in raw-data collection and mapping efforts traditionally dominated by professional organizations. Here an architecture overview is proposed for adaptive and robust modelling of natural hazards, following the Semantic Array Programming paradigm to also include the distributed array of social contributors called Citizen Sensor in a semantically-enhanced strategy for D-TM modelling. The modelling architecture proposes a multicriteria approach for assessing the array of potential impacts with qualitative rapid assessment methods based on a Partial Open Loop Feedback Control (POLFC) schema and complementing more traditional and accurate a-posteriori assessment. We discuss the computational aspect of environmental risk modelling using array-based parallel paradigms on High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms, in order for the implications of urgency to be introduced into the systems (Urgent-HPC).Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, 1 text box, presented at the 3rd Conference of Computational Interdisciplinary Sciences (CCIS 2014), Asuncion, Paragua

Exploration of Aerial Firefighting Fleet Effectiveness and Cost by System of Systems Simulations

Wildfires are becoming a more frequent and devastating phenomena across the globe. The suppression of these wildfires is a dangerous and complex activity considering the vast systems that need to operate together to monitor, mitigate, and suppress the fire. In addition, the required cooperation spans multiple institutes in different capacities. Thus, the recognition of the wildfire suppression scenario as a System of Systems (SoS) is valid. Due to the dangers associated with firefighting and the increased occurrence, there is scope for the design of unmanned aerial vehicles for wildfire suppression. In this work, a SoS driven aircraft design, cost, and fleet assessment methodology is utilized together with a wildfire simulation to investigate several sensitivities relating to design and operational parameters. Further, this paper investigates their impacts on the measures of effectiveness, i.e. burnt area and operating cost. These two parameters enable the identification of optimal fleet size for wildfire suppression for a given scenario and aircraft definition

Exploration of Aerial Firefighting Fleet Effectiveness and Cost by System of Systems Simulations

Wildfires are becoming a more frequent and devastating phenomena across the globe. The suppression of these wildfires is a dangerous and complex activity considering the vast systems that need to operate together to monitor, mitigate, and suppress the fire. In addition, the required cooperation spans multiple institutes in different capacities. Thus, the recognition of the wildfire suppression scenario as a System of Systems (SoS) is valid. Due to the dangers associated with firefighting and the increased occurrence, there is scope for the design of unmanned aerial vehicles for wildfire suppression. In this work, a SoS driven aircraft design, cost, and fleet assessment methodology is utilized together with a wildfire simulation to investigate several sensitivities relating to design and operational parameters. Further, this paper investigates their impacts on the measures of effectiveness, i.e. burnt area and operating cost. These two parameters enable the identification of optimal fleet size for wildfire suppression for a given scenario and aircraft definition

Destination Earth: Survey on “Digital Twins” technologies and activities, in the Green Deal area

Digital Twins have been around for decades, especially in industrial processes. However, with the recent advent of transformative digital technologies (i.e. IoT, AI, ML, Big Data analytics, and ubiquitous connectivity) Digital Twins are changing most of the society sectors, providing the most advance pattern to make the physical and the digital worlds interact. Naturally, this is also true for the scientific sector, and in particular those disciplines that are engaged in understanding and addressing the Global Change effects. Thanks to the Digital Twins growing development, for the first time, it is possible to envision a digital replica of important natural and social phenomena and processes, trying to anticipate their behaviour. There exist diverse definitions of Digital Twins, reflecting the diverse concerns of the industrial, scientific, and standardization sectors (in particular IEEE and ISO/IEC), which have been working on their description and realization. The main interaction features characterizing a Digital Twin are: - Interoperability; - Information Model; - Data Exchange; - Administration; - Synchronization; - Push mode (Publish Subscribe). According the scientific research, there is still the need to address the following challenges to push Digital Twins implementation and effective use: - Unify data and model standards; - Share data and models; - Innovate on services; - Establish forums. In industry, Digital Twins are well used in “vertical” sectors/application areas, including: manufacturing, energy, smart cities, farming, building, healthcare. For the applied scientific and research areas, this preliminary study recognized several areas.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom

Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), particularly social media and geographic information systems (GIS), have become a transformational force in emergency response. Social media enables ad hoc collaboration, providing timely, useful information dissemination and sharing, and helping to overcome limitations of time and place. Geographic information systems increase the level of situation awareness, serving geospatial data using interactive maps, animations, and computer generated imagery derived from sophisticated global remote sensing systems. Digital workspaces bring these technologies together and contribute to meeting ad hoc and formal emergency response challenges through their affordances of situation awareness and mass collaboration. Distributed ICTs that enable ad hoc emergency response via digital workspaces have arguably made traditional top-down system deployments less relevant in certain situations, including emergency response (Merrill, 2009; Heylighen, 2007a, b). Heylighen (2014, 2007a, b) theorizes that human cognitive stigmergy explains some self-organizing characteristics of ad hoc systems. Elliott (2007) identifies cognitive stigmergy as a factor in mass collaborations supported by digital workspaces. Stigmergy, a term from biology, refers to the phenomenon of self-organizing systems with agents that coordinate via perceived changes in the environment rather than direct communication. In the present research, ad hoc emergency response is examined through the lens of human cognitive stigmergy. The basic assertion is that ICTs and stigmergy together make possible highly effective ad hoc collaborations in circumstances where more typical collaborative methods break down. The research is organized into three essays: an in-depth analysis of the development and deployment of the Ushahidi emergency response software platform, a comparison of the emergency response ICTs used for emergency response during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and a process model developed from the case studies and relevant academic literature is described

Sensitivity Analysis of Aerial Wildfire Fighting Tactics with Heterogeneous Fleets Using an Agent Based Simulation Framework

The increase in the average temperature of the global surface temperature caused longer wildfire seasons, which have caused more severe and frequent incidents, resulting in higher expenses, unrecoverable losses and civilian casualties. Moreover, the increased number of wildfires has contributed to higher levels of carbon in the atmosphere, further exacerbating global warming. Fighting wildfires is a complex phenomenon that requires various resources, and the System of Systems (SoS) approach can be leveraged to analyze the problem. This study utilizes an SoS simulation framework to model wildfire suppression missions, focusing on a mixed fleet composition of suppression drones with different characteristics such as airframe configurations, payload capacity, flight velocity, and powertrain architectures. The study evaluates multiple suppression tactics, considering factors such as fleet composition, available agents, and resources. The results of the analysis show the impact of various environmental parameters on fire growth and provide a rigorous sensitivity analysis for wildfire containment use cases. The use of the SoS framework helps to reveal nuanced patterns at the SoS level, which can aid in the development of new solutions for wildfire fighting. This study highlights the importance of considering the complexities of the problem and the need for innovative approaches to combat wildfires effectively

Resilience assessment and planning in power distribution systems:Past and future considerations

Over the past decade, extreme weather events have significantly increased worldwide, leading to widespread power outages and blackouts. As these threats continue to challenge power distribution systems, the importance of mitigating the impacts of extreme weather events has become paramount. Consequently, resilience has become crucial for designing and operating power distribution systems. This work comprehensively explores the current landscape of resilience evaluation and metrics within the power distribution system domain, reviewing existing methods and identifying key attributes that define effective resilience metrics. The challenges encountered during the formulation, development, and calculation of these metrics are also addressed. Additionally, this review acknowledges the intricate interdependencies between power distribution systems and critical infrastructures, including information and communication technology, transportation, water distribution, and natural gas networks. It is important to understand these interdependencies and their impact on power distribution system resilience. Moreover, this work provides an in-depth analysis of existing research on planning solutions to enhance distribution system resilience and support power distribution system operators and planners in developing effective mitigation strategies. These strategies are crucial for minimizing the adverse impacts of extreme weather events and fostering overall resilience within power distribution systems.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, submitted for review to Renewable and Sustainable Energy Review