Modelling contingent technology adoption in farming irrigation communities

Of all the uses of water, agriculture is the one that requires the greatest proportion of resources worldwide. Consequently, it is a salient subject for environmental policy-making, and adoption of modern irrigation systems is a key means to improve water use eficiency. In this paper we present an agent-based model of the adoption process - known as "modernisation" - of a community constituted by farmer agents. The phenomenon is approached as a contingent innovation adoption: a first stage to reach a collective agreement followed by an individual adoption decision. The model is based on historical data from two Spanish irrigation communities during the period 1975-2010. Results suggest that individual profits and farm extension (as proxy of social influence) are suitable assumptions when modelling the modernisation of communities in regions where agriculture is strongly market-oriented and water is scarce. These encouraging results point towards the interest of more sophisticated socio-cognitive modelling within a more realistic socio-hydrologic context

A value-based approach to agent-based simulation for policy assessment: an exploration in the water domain

Policy-making is a value-driven activity. From the assessment of states of the world to the choice of the appropriate actions to do under given circumstances, values are present in deciding whether something is good or not. Thus, values are involved in policy design, but also in the behaviour of those individuals who are going to be affected by a policy. Since these value-driven choices in policy-making may have significant social consequences, it is advisory to assess policies prior to their enactment. Assuming that agent-based simulation is a powerful methodology for this purpose, the need of a conceptual framework that includes values into policy simulator systems is clear. Interestingly, this leads to explore the role of values in problem design from the ground, especially the model and the outcome assessment. In order to imbue values into computational models, a methodology is proposed: contextualise and translate abstract values into state indicators, and build the simulator around these representations (from the set of interventions to the their assessment). This methodology proposal is illustrated in the water domain and is used to address two case studies by means of simulation: the first, the modernisation of farmer communities in Spain; and second, the interaction of policy actors that lead to management policy shifts in the urban context. Finally, the contributions of the framework in issues that are raising concerns in Artificial Intelligence nowadays, as well as potential contributions to water management, are explained as future work lines.La creació de polítiques públiques és una activitat motivada per valors. Des de la avaluació d’estats del món a l’elecció de l’acció apropiada sota unes circumstàncies determinades, els valors estan presents a l’hora de decidir si quelcom és bo o no. Així, els valors juguen un paper en el disseny de polítiques, però també ho fan en el comportament dels individus que seran afectats per una política. Donat que aquestes decisions motivades por valores poden tenir conseqüències socials significatives, és recomanable avaluar les polítiques públiques abans de la seva promulgació. Assumint que la simulació basada en agents és una metodologia potent per aquest propòsit, la necessitat d’un marc conceptual que inclogui valors en els sistemes de simulació de polítiques és clara. De manera interessant, això porta a explorar el rol dels valors en el disseny de problemes des dels fonaments, especialment pel que fa als models i a l’avaluació de resultats. Amb la finalitat d’infondre valors en els models computacionals, es proposa una metodologia: contextualitzar i traduir els valors abstractes en indicadors d’estats, i construir els simuladors envoltant d’aquestes representacions (des del conjunt d’intervencions a la seva avaluació). Aquesta proposta metodològica és il·lustrada en el domini de l’aigua, i llavors és utilitzada per abordar dos casos d’estudi mitjançant simulació: en primer lloc, la modernització de comunitats de regants a Espanya; en segon lloc, la interacció d’actors polítiques que condueix a girs en les polítiques de gestió a l’àmbit urbà. Finalment, les contribucions del marc conceptual en qüestions que estan suscitant preocupacions actualment en l’Intel·ligència Artificial, així com contribucions potencials a la gestió de l’aigua, s’expliquen com línies de treball futuresAmb el suport del Pla de Doctorats Industrials de la Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya (2016 DI 043). En aquest projecte de doctorat industrial hi han col·laborat Aqualia, l’Institut d’Investigació en Intel·ligència Artificial (IIIA-CSIC), i la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)

A Playground for the Value Alignment Problem

The popularity of some recent applications of AI has given rise to some concerns in society about the risks of AI. One response to these concerns has been the orientation of scientific and technological efforts towards a responsible development of AI. This stance has been articulated from different perspectives. One is to focus on the risks associated with the autonomy of artificial entities, and one way of making this focus operational is the “value-alignment problem” (VAP); namely, to study how this autonomy may become provably aligned with certain moral values. With this purpose in mind, we advocate the characterisation of a problem archetype to study how values may be imbued in autonomous artificially intelligent entities. The motivation is twofold, on one hand to decompose a complex problem to study simpler elements and, on the other, the successful precedents of this artifice in analogous contexts (e.g. chess for cognitive AI, RoboCup for intelligent robotics). We propose to use agent-based modelling of policy-making for this purpose because policy-making (i) constitutes a problem domain that is rich, accessible and evocative, (ii) one may claim that it is an essentially value-drive process and, (iii) it allows for a crisp differentiation of two complementary views of VAP: imbuing values in agents and imbuing values in the social system in order to foster value-aligned behaviour of the agents that act within the system. In this paper we elaborate the former argument, propose a characterisation of the archetype and identify research lines that may be systematically studied with this archetype

Practical reasoning using values: an argumentative approach based on a hierarchy of values

Values are at the heart of human decision-making. They are used to decide whether something or some state of affairs is good or not, and they are also used to address the moral dilemma of the right thing to do under given circumstances. Both uses are present in several everyday situations, from the design of a public policy to the negotiation of employee benefit packages. Both uses of values are specially relevant when one intends to design or validate that artificial intelligent systems behave in a morally correct way. In real life, the choice of policy components or the agreed upon benefit package are processes that involve argumentation. Likewise, the design and deployment of value-driven artificial entities may be well served by embedding practical reasoning capabilities in these entities or using argumentation for their design and certification processes. In this paper, we propose a formal framework to support the choice of actions of a value-driven agent and arrange them into plans that reflect the agent’s preferences. The framework is based on defeasible argumentation. It presumes that agent values are partially ordered in a hierarchy that is used to resolve conflicts between incommensurable values.Teze acknowledges partial support by CONICET, Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS), and Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos (UNER), Argentina. Perelló-Moragues is supported with an AGAUR industrial doctoral grant sponsored by FCC AQUALIA, IIIA-CSIC, and UAB. Godo, Perelló-Moragues and Noriega acknowledge the AppPhil project (funded by Caixa Bank, RecerCaixa 2017) and the Spanish FEDER/ MINECO project CIMBVAL (TIN2017-89758-R). Godo’s work is also supported by the Spanish FEDER/ MINECO project RASO (TIN2015-71799-C2-1-P).Peer reviewe

Modelling Domestic Water Use in Metropolitan Areas Using Socio-Cognitive Agents

[EN] In this paper, we present an agent-based model for exploring the interplay of basic structural and socio-cognitive factors and conventional water saving measures in the evolution of domestic water use in metropolitan areas. Using data of Barcelona, we discuss three scenarios that involve plausible demographic and cultural trends. Results show that, in the three scenarios, aggregate outcomes are consistent with available conventional modelling (while total water use grows, per capita water use declines); however, the agent-based simulation also reveals, for each scenario, the different dynamics of simple policy measures with population growth, cultural trends and social influence; thus providing unexpected insights for policy design.Peer reviewe

When the fourth water and digital revolution encountered COVID-19.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is, undeniably, a substantial shock to our civilization which has revealed the value of public services that relate to public health. Ensuring a safe and reliable water supply and maintaining water sanitation has become ever more critical during the pandemic. For this reason, researchers and practitioners have promptly investigated the impact associated with the spread of SARS-CoV-2 on water treatment processes, focusing specifically on water disinfection. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacts multiple aspects of the urban water sector besides those related to the engineering processes, including sanitary, economic, and social consequences which can have significant effects in the near future. Furthermore, this outbreak appears at a time when the water sector was already experiencing a fourth revolution, transitioning toward the digitalisation of the sector, which redefines the Water-Human-Data Nexus. In this contribution, a product of collaboration between academics and practitioners from water utilities, we delve into the multiple impacts that the pandemic is currently causing and their possible consequences in the future. We show how the digitalisation of the water sector can provide useful approaches and tools to help address the impact of the pandemic. We expect this discussion to contribute not only to current challenges, but also to the conceptualization of new projects and the broader task of ameliorating climate change

When the fourth water and digital revolution encountered COVID-19.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is, undeniably, a substantial shock to our civilization which has revealed the value of public services that relate to public health. Ensuring a safe and reliable water supply and maintaining water sanitation has become ever more critical during the pandemic. For this reason, researchers and practitioners have promptly investigated the impact associated with the spread of SARS-CoV-2 on water treatment processes, focusing specifically on water disinfection. However, the COVID-19 pandemic impacts multiple aspects of the urban water sector besides those related to the engineering processes, including sanitary, economic, and social consequences which can have significant effects in the near future. Furthermore, this outbreak appears at a time when the water sector was already experiencing a fourth revolution, transitioning toward the digitalisation of the sector, which redefines the Water-Human-Data Nexus. In this contribution, a product of collaboration between academics and practitioners from water utilities, we delve into the multiple impacts that the pandemic is currently causing and their possible consequences in the future. We show how the digitalisation of the water sector can provide useful approaches and tools to help address the impact of the pandemic. We expect this discussion to contribute not only to current challenges, but also to the conceptualization of new projects and the broader task of ameliorating climate change

Estat del medi ambient : Illes Balears. 1997

Se trata del tercer informe elaborado por la Societat d'Història Natural de les Balears sobre el estado del medio ambiente en esta comunidad, aportando datos e informaciones que posibiliten la evaluación de la situación actual y de las tendencias. Se abordan las temáticas relativas al medio físico -tiempo, medio atmosférico, contaminación, fuentes de emisiones, calidad del aire, cambio climático, ruido ambiental, suelos, recursos geológicos no hídricos, recursos hídricos-, medio biótico terrestre -flora y fauna-, medio marino, residuos, parques naturales y zonas protegidas, energía, transporte, economía, así como un apartado dedicado a la vinculación entre medio ambiente y sociedad, que recoge las actividades relacionadas con el medio ambiente, tesis y publicaciones, campañas institucionales y de entidades privadas. Se completa con un importante anexo de referencias bibliográficas.BalearesES