SIMULATION: Transactions of The Society for Modeling and Simulation International

Edmonds, Bruce; Möhring, Michael

doi: 10.1177/0037549705053173pmid: N/A

Athanasiadis, Ioannis N.; Mentes, Alexandros K.; Mitkas, Pericles A.; Mylopoulos, Yiannis A.

doi: 10.1177/0037549705053172pmid: N/A

The global effort toward sustainable development has initiated a transition in water management. Water utility companies use water-pricing policies as an instrument for controlling residential water demand. To support policy makers in their decisions, the authors have developed DAWN, a hybrid model for evaluating water-pricing policies. DAWN integrates an agent-based social model for the consumer with conventional econometric models and simulates the residential water demand-supply chain, enabling the evaluation of different scenarios for policy making. An agent community is assigned to behave as water consumers, while econometric and social models are incorporated into them for estimating water consumption. DAWN’s main advantage is that it supports social interaction between consumers, through an influence diffusion mechanism, implemented via inter-agent communication. Parameters affecting water consumption and associated with consumers’ social behavior can be simulated with DAWN. Real-world results of DAWN’s application for the evaluation of five water-pricing policies in Thessaloniki, Greece, are presented.

López-Paredes, Adolfo; Saurí, David; Galán, José M.

doi: 10.1177/0037549705053167pmid: N/A

In this article, the authors present an agent-based simulator for the integrated freshwater assessment in a geographical area. It has been developed and successfully applied to the metropolitan region of Barcelona, and it is currently applied to the metropolitan area of Valladolid. Such simulator provides the policy makers with an additional tool to evaluate alternative water policies in different scenarios. The design and the validation of the model are based on participatory processes with a platform of the representative stakeholders.

Espinasse, Bernard; Franchesquin, Nathalie

doi: 10.1177/0037549705053171pmid: N/A

Modeling and simulation of human-influenced ecosystems require the integration of natural and decision-making processes. In such ecosystems, natural resource management aims at protecting natural areas while enabling human activities that contribute to these area characteristics. The object of this research is the modeling and simulation of the hydraulic management of the Camargue ecosystem with a multiagent system. The authors first present the problematics of this hydraulic management, its objectives, and a formalization of the different decision processes centered on a social contract and associated with two main phases: the contract elaboration phase and the contract realization phase. They present conceptual modeling and multiagent modeling of these two phases with details on agent models, agent behaviors, and negotiation models.

Le Bars, M.; Attonaty, J. M.; Pinson, S.; Ferrand, N.

doi: 10.1177/0037549705053166pmid: N/A

Many negotiations take place between farmers, water suppliers, public servants, and environmentalists to allocate water resources between users in different areas. However, few negotiations quantify the consequences of alternatives solutions. Models that are used are often oversimplified and only take into account elements that are easy to calculate, or they are too complex to be used for negotiations in real time. In all cases, they do not consider the heterogeneity of decision makers. The authors demonstrate that agent-based modeling could help these negotiations by showing the consequences of water allocation rules with respect to different criteria.