An integrated modelling framework for simulating regional-scale actor responses to global change in the water domain

  • Authors:

  • R. Barthel;S. Janisch;N. Schwarz;A. Trifkovic;D. Nickel;C. Schulz;W. Mauser

  • Affiliations:

  • Institute of Hydraulic Engineering, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 7a, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany;Institute of Computer Science, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Oettingenstrasse 67, D-80538 Munich, Germany;UFZ - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Computational Landscape Ecology, Permoserstrasse 15, D-04318 Leipzig, Germany;Institute of Hydraulic Engineering, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 7a, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany;Institute of Hydraulic Engineering, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 7a, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany;Centre for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel, Kurt-Wolters-Strasse 3, D-34131 Kassel, Germany;Faculty for Geosciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Luisenstrasse 37, D-80333 Munich, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Environmental Modelling & Software
  • Year:
  • 2008

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Abstract

Within coupled hydrological simulation systems, taking socio-economic processes into account is still a challenging task. In particular, systems that aim at evaluating impacts of climatic change on large spatial and temporal scales cannot be based on the assumption that infrastructure, economy, demography and other human factors remain constant while physical boundary conditions change. Therefore, any meaningful simulation of possible future scenarios needs to enable socio-economic systems to react and to adapt to climatic changes. To achieve this it is necessary to simulate decision-making processes of the relevant actors in a way which is adequate for the scale, the catchment specific management problems to be investigated and finally the data availability. This contribution presents the DeepActor approach for representing such human decision processes, which makes use of a multi-actor simulation framework and has similarities to agent-based approaches. This DeepActor approach is embedded in Danubia, a coupled simulation system comprising 16 individual models to simulate Global Change impacts on the entire water cycle of the Upper Danube Catchment (Germany, 77,000km^2). The applicability of Danubia and in particular the DeepActor approach for treating the socio-economic part of the water cycle in a process-based way is demonstrated by means of concrete simulation models of the water supply sector and of the domestic water users. Results from scenario simulations are used to demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of the approach.