Computation of the integrated flow of particles between polygons

  • Authors:
  • Annie Bouvier;Kiên Kiêu;Katarzyna Adamczyk;Hervé Monod

  • Affiliations:
  • INRA, UR341 Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France;INRA, UR341 Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France;INRA, UR341 Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France;INRA, UR341 Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France

  • Venue:
  • Environmental Modelling & Software
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

To quantify the flow of particles over a heterogeneous area, some models require the integration of a pointwise dispersal function over source and target polygons. This calculation is a non-trivial task and may require a great deal of computing time. In this paper, an efficient and accurate algorithm is presented to integrate general individual dispersal functions between pairs of convex or non-convex polygons. Geometric calculations are performed using standard tools from computational geometry. Numerical integration is then performed either by a grid method or by an adaptive cubature method. The procedure is illustrated with a case study. It is shown that the cubature method is much more efficient than the grid method and that its error estimates are accurate. The algorithm is implemented in a C++ program, Califlopp.