Towards Modeling Support System for Simulation of Water Quality

Abstract

This prototype modeling support system for simulation of water quality is to assist a modeler in deriving and simulating, in a single software environment, a model to predict changes in water quality for a given aquatic system (e.g., stream‐lake system). The concept of modeling support is implemented through representation and manipulation of modeling constructs, called here atomic models, which describe the dynamic behavior of structural components of an aquatic system. A knowledge representation scheme called the system entity structure (SES) is employed to express three relationships: decomposition—how the system is hierarchically decomposed into components; taxonomy—how admissible variants of the components can be classified; and coupling—how these components can be linked to reconstitute the original system. A modeler can select entities that correspond to atomic models expressed by differential or difference equations. These atomic components are stored as executable objects in the model base. The selected atomic models are retrieved from the model base and are coupled into a more complex model of the given aquatic system.