Development and Application of a Component-based Generic Farm System Simulator Implementing a Semantically Enriched Integrated Modelling Framework

By H. Li, K. Louhichi, S. Janssen, A.E. Rizzoli, I.N. Athanasiadis, E. Meuter & D. Huber
In Seventh Int'l Symposium on Environmental Software Systems (ISESS-05) , Prague, Czech Republic, 2007.

Abstract:
Cover image In this paper, the software development and test applications of a component-based generic farm system simulator is presented. The Farm System Simulator (FSSIM) developed within the EU FP6 SEAMLESS project is an integrated modelling system developed to assess the economic and ecological impacts of agricultural and environmental policies and technological innovations. Based on the semantic link of biophysical and micro-economic models, FSSIM seeks to describe the behaviour of the farmer at the farm level given specific biophysical, socio-economic and policy constraints, in order to analyze in an integrated manner the behaviour of the whole farming system. FSSIM is a modular system which involves a mathematical programming model (FSSIM-MP), and an agricultural management module (FSSIM-AM) that has several model components to generate the technical coefficients needed by FSSIM-MP. The respective model component of FSSIM-MP and those of FSSIM-AM are developed in different modelling environments by using C#, Java and GAMS, while data is stored in relational databases. Model assumptions, interfaces and causal chains, along with available data sources are specified in a declarative fashion, serving as the building blocks of a semantic-aware integration framework based on ontology-enabled knowledge base. A set of ontologies describing model components and databases for FSSIM has been built. Ontologies set up clear definitions for loosely integrating models in an open environment. In this way, model components are approached as autonomous agents confronting to open interfaces and strict contracts, and are automatically integrated into the FSSIM framework through OpenMI+ pulling model linking approach. An application of the FSSIM modules to different farm types within Midi-Pyrenees region is given as a case study.

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