PoMM User's Manual

Module Overview

Purpose of the Policy Making Module

The objective of the Policy-Making Module (PoMM) is to enable users to analyze the impact of changes in the policies related to the adoption of NBS and hybrid NBS for mitigation of CECs from urban runoff, hence enabling users on both science and policy sides to devise what changes would be more effective.

In order to link the PoMM to real-world applications, this general objective has been declined into three specific objectives that allow decision-makers to explore, in a given context, the best ways

• to include NBSs among customary or preferred solutions in spatial planning;
• to include CECs in water monitoring plans;
• to develop a pilot management plan of CECs from urban runoff that includes hybrid NBS solutions.

To make all this possible the PoMM hinges on three pivots:

• Knowledge representation,
• Policy / decision case definition (mapping of case playground),
• Questioning, analysis of the outcomes of modelling/simulations, reporting for decision.

Who is the PoMM intended for

The PoMM is specially conceived for decision-makers and policy-makers who are involved (or might be involved) in the formation of policies and rulemaking about the adoption of hNBS for the mitigation of runoff CECs.

Intended users of the PoMM include:

• Policymakers-rulemakers at town, province, regional level
• Bureaucratic and administrative agents (including controlling and permitting bodies)
• Politicians
• Planners
• Scientists.

From the PoMM viewpoint, user categories are not linked to the actual role played by a user in real-life (a user can play any role, real or fictional). Having this in mind, the PoMM is applicable to both actual and potential situations.

Key functionalities

The key functionalities of the PoMM module are described in the following table:

Table 5 Main submodules/functionalities of the policy-making module.

Submodule/Functionality	Description
Knowledge representation	includes the terminology service which assures a common understanding across all PoMM parts, the information stored about the cases under study, and the guidelines for the different types of experiments
Policy / decision case definition (mapping of case playground)	includes the tools to describe the case under study in which PoMM experiments take place, to formalize the existing decision-making and policy-making procedures, information flows, and practices following the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), and to assign NUTS, NBS and CECs considered.
Questioning, analysis and reporting for decision support	includes the tools and interfaces to transform a research question into a PoMM query by designing experiments, then analyzing the outputs obtained. Reporting encompasses the tools to communicate the results in ways suitable for the intended targets.

How to access the PoMM

You can access the PoMM module via the AI-DSS Platform following general login instructions and pressing the appropriate link on the platform's side menu.

User System / Device requirements

For optimal performance, the following hardware and operating system configurations are recommended:

• Operating System:
  • 64-bit Windows 11, macOS Ventura, or latest Linux distributions

• Processor:
  • Quad-core CPU (Intel i5/i7 or AMD Ryzen 5+)

• RAM:
  • 8 GB or more

• Web Browser:
  • Latest version of Chrome or Firefox (for best compatibility and speed)

• Display:
  • 1080p (Full HD) or higher resolution

• No installation is needed.
• NetLogo Web does not support all features available in the desktop version of NetLogo. For advanced functionalities, consider installing the desktop version.

A matter of privacy

After following the link on the platform's side menu to access the module, yor are asked again to accept a specific privacy policy concerning your information and its handling in the PoMM [Fig. 01].

Fig. 01 - PoMM Privacy Disclaimer Acceptance

The PoMM does not store user data, including uploaded files, configurations, models, simulations, or reports, beyond the duration of the active session. Once the session ends, all data will be permanently deleted from the platform's servers.

It is your sole responsibility to download and securely save any data, reports, or configurations generated or uploaded during the session. The PoMM is not liable for any loss of data due to failure to download or save session outputs.

While the PoMM platform implements standard security measures to protect active session data, users are advised to avoid uploading sensitive or confidential information.

If you do not agree to the policy conditions, you are redirected to the public area of the Help section of the module.

Strike the right button

The PoMM offers a wide variety of specific features all geared towards making your journey as satisfying and useful as possible.

It is important to strike the right button to start with! [Fig. 02]

Fig. 02 - PoMM Section overview

• Start New Session: Begin a new policy modelling session from scratch.

• Restore Session: Resume a previously saved modelling session.
• Process templates: Decide your strategy answering some questions to start a new session with a pre-configured process template.
• Agents simulation: Proceed with the Agent Based Simulation.
• Thesaurus & Vocabulary: Access the standardized terminology and definitions.
• Help & User's Guide: Access comprehensive documentation and user guides.

Brief flow of operations

The flow that users follow in the PoMM goes through 5 main steps:

1. description of the case under study defining what the starting experimental context looks like with respect to the objectives to investigate (i.e.: to include NBSs among customary or preferred solutions in spatial planning; to include CECs in water monitoring plans; to develop a pilot management plan of CECs from urban runoff that includes hybrid NBS solutions)
2. definition of an intervention to influence the baseline context in order to facilitate the achievement of one's goal (where should/can I act? how?)
3. analysis of the outcomes of the experiment performed (how does the hypothesised intervention change my initial context? what are the results obtained? am I closer to my goal?)
4. documentation and sharing of results (how do I document and share the results of my experiment with other interested stakeholders?)
5. overcoming doubts and obstacles in experimentation (what tools do I have to deepen and reduce the risk of language ambiguity/equivocality across different knowledge domains and fields of practice involved in my experiment?).

Difference between network modelling and agent based modelling

There are two main modelling approaches in the PoMM:

• a network modelling approach to mapping out the relationships among variables that affect CEC-NBS decisions in a real-world procedural decision-making process to reveal the overall structure of the system, observe how the system behaves without any intervention, define what are the interventions needed to change the final state of the system to own advantage;
• an agent based modelling approach simulating the actions and interactions of individual "agents" (could be different stakeholders but also NBS solutions) within the system to explore what behaviour could emerge as a response to pollution risks, floodings, etc. It's like creating a virtual world where watching how individual behaviors add up to create larger and complex patterns.

By combining them, users can create models that are both cognitively realistic and dynamically rich and this is particularly valuable for studying complex systems, as in the case of the use of NBS solutions to mitigate the pollution effects of CEC contaminants from urban runoff phenomena.

The two modelling methods are managed separately in the PoMM, accessed from two different functions in the main menu that are not interconnected.

Generally speaking, in a logical sense, the networking modelling takes place ‘before’ the agent based modelling.

That's because the network modelling approach provide the "cognitive" framework, the understanding of how factors interrelate and helps to decide where to intervene.   

The ABM approach provides the "behavioral" framework, the simulation of how agents act, and allows to explore and compare the sentiment and social response to NBS for CECs depending on factors like front and maintenance cost, risk-mitigating capacity, etc.

In PoMM you can choose which modelling system you want to use: you can use both if you want to get the best out of your analysis.

But you can also decide to use only one because you consider it more suitable for the type of reflections you are making.

Furthermore, both modelling techniques allow you to choose your own approach: are you interested in a purely descriptive or observational approach to gain a better understanding? Or are you interested in an approach that involves intervening on what you are observing and understanding the effects of your intervention? Are you interested in evaluating the impact of any changes following your intervention hypotheses? And from what point of view?

The PoMM allows you to do all this: read the following suggestions and user instructions very carefully to find your winning strategy!

Knowledge representation

The first pivot of the PoMM module is knowledge representation.

We aimed to create clear, machine-readable definitions for key terms, establishing logical connections within the PoMM framework and simulations. This minimizes misunderstandings caused by differing interpretations of language across the various fields involved in D4Runoff.

Activities like CEC characterization, NBS classification, policy-making guidelines intersect on the same case from different perspectives and with diverse vocabularies.

Sometimes the meaning of important terms that we use are confusing (multiple meanings depending on context or user, or synonyms) or a term is authoritatively defined somewhere, but its definition does not fit well with our shared domain.

Terminology (vocabulary, thesaurus and ontology)

The D4Runoff Thesaurs is a controlled and structured vocabulary, related to the domain the project deals with in, which concepts are represented by terms, organized so that relationships between concepts are made explicit.

The D4RUNOFF Thesaurus:

Fig. 03 - Click Thesaurus & Vocabulary

• Ensures everyone understands the information structure (common meaning).
• Clearly states the assumptions made about the subject.
• Checks that the subject information is consistent (verifies accuracy).
• Allows the subject information to be used again in different ways.
• Separates subject knowledge from how it's used.
• Simplifies searches and makes it easier to find information.

You can access the Thesaurus by simply clicking on the button on the main menu: a new browser window will open, allowing you to have the main definitions at your fingertips so that you can better understand how to design your case study [Fig. 03].

You do not need to authenticate to the Thesaurus.

Fig. 04 - Thesaurus & Vocabulary Home page

What you can do

The use of the vocabulary/thesaurus is very intuitive.

On the main page [Fig. 04] you can find:

• a bar on which to write the term you want to search for
• an alphabetical list on which you can click to search
• a list of main contents at your immediate disposal that help you understand some of the most relevant elements which represent the scope of analysis of the PoMM or are useful for your experiments
• a link to an advanced search.

  

  Fig. 05 - Example of a concept of the Thesaurus and its relationship  

Note that the "My Account link" on the navigating bar is only available to system administrators.

The interface [Fig. 05] allows you to:

• see the description of each search term
• read definitions and bibliographical notes
• directly access other terms related to the entry you searched with more specific, broader, equivalent, preferred or semantically related meaning.

Note that the interface is multilingual but the contents are in English.

In the same screen of a defined term, different kinds of relationships are displayed allowing you to move easily from one term to another via the different links.

Fig. 06 - Example of equivalent and associative relationships

There are different kind of relationships you can find in the D4Runoff thesaurus that can include:

1. hierarchical relationships such as broader term (BT) and narrower term (NT). These terms denote relationships between the concepts (not the terms) and indicate whether a concept contains or is contained by another concept. Hierarchical relationships can be used to broaden and narrow a search effectively and ensure that narrower terms fall within the scope of the broader terms;
2. equivalence relationships such USE and UF (Use For). They are used to denote equivalence between terms (not concepts) and to distinguish between preferred terms and their synonyms (a term, which has the same meaning or covers the same concept as another term or multiple terms) or quasi-synonyms (a term that does not usually have the same meaning as the preferred term but does in the context of a specific thesaurus) [Fig. 06];
3. associative relationships such as related terms (RTs). They are used to indicate that different terms in a thesaurus are related in some way or have an overlapping scope. They thus allow users to expand their initial search into different aspects of the subject.

Fig. 07 - Thesaurus Advanced Search

The advanced search [Fig. 07] allows you to navigate the Thesaurus also, for example, from the notes that have been associated with each term, doing your own free search.

Fig. 08 - Thesaurus connection with external channels (EUROVOC)

The Thesaurus is linked to qualified sources and validated vocabularies

• EUROVOC: a multilingual thesaurus (controlled vocabulary) maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, used by the European Parliament, the Publications Office of the European Union, the national and regional parliaments in Europe, some national government departments, and other European organisations [Fig. 08]

• AGROVOC: a multilingual controlled vocabulary covering all areas of interest of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), including food, nutrition, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and the environment.
• GEMET - GEneral Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus: a source of common and relevant terminology used under the ever-growing environmental agenda that has been developed since 1995 as an indexing, retrieval and control tool for the European Topic Centre on Catalogue of Data Sources (ETC/CDS) and the European Environment Agency (EEA), Copenhagen.
• EARTh - Environmental Applications Reference Thesaurus: represents a general- purpose thesaurus for the environment. It promises to become a core tool for indexing and discovering environmental resources by refining and extending GEMET.

Knowledge repository

The PoMM knowledge repository (help, user's manuals, technical documentation) has been organised as a semantic-rich website.

It was developed on the basis of the Mediawiki platform, an extremely powerful and scalable software, which enables the implementation of feature-rich wikis and allows you to move freely between contents depending on your qualification as a user. [Fig. 09]

What you can do

On the main page, you can access the main content and information.

Fig. 09-Help & User's Guide Main Page

From this page it is possible to reach every area of the help feature.

If you are a registered user (from the AI platform), you can access a restricted area that contains the Comprehensive Knowledge Base and Full Documentation and allows to:

• access the FAQ system and specific tutorials
• analyse case studies (including D4Runoff pilot sites) and applications of the PoMM in other contexts
• deepen the policy scenario
• deepen the underlying principles, mechanisms, and technology choices incorporating the theoretical body of knowledge that supports PoMM operations
• access targeted bibliographies and other useful resources
• access technical documentation about the technology, architecture, core modules and interconnections.

Policy / decision case definition

In the PoMM, you build policy scenarios to map out the steps involved in making decisions that affect well focused central issues in order to operationalize the exploration, design and analysis of changes in the policies related to the adoption of NBS and hybrid NBS for mitigation of CECs from urban runoff.

Upstream of the activities for which the platform can offer support in your thinking, you should start by formulating your guiding question and keep it in mind all along the way: what are you trying to answer? What do you want to explore?

The first step is to understand the boundaries of your system and how things work today in your context. Essentially, it's a way to visualize "your world" in relation to the relevant policy-making cases as it is, to create the ‘laboratory’ of the experiment and to map the framework of the case under study.

Fig. 010 - Start a new session

Typically, the definition of the policy/decision case starts with network modelling.

Procedural description (network modelling) of the case

To outline your case you have to start a new session from scratch.

From the main menu choose |Start new session| [Fig. 010]

Outline the case under study

You will need to outline your case study by following the steps below.

(1) Defining the geographic boundaries of your physical system

Your context will change radically if you are involved in analysing policies acting at different territorial levels: the policy processes or stakeholders to be involved may also change greatly. The PoMM allows you to keep track of the territorial level at which you are reasoning. 

Select the NUTS level to which your analysis relates. NUTS (stands for Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) are statistical codes to define a geographical area in the European Union. The NUTS system divides each EU country into three levels: NUTS 1 (Major socio-economic regions); NUTS 2 (Basic regions for the application of regional policies); NUTS 3: Small regions for specific diagnoses. [Fig. 011]	Fig. 011 - Choosing NUTS level - Home page
You can change the NUTS map display level in the top right of the screen and then directly select your area from the map of Europe on the left of the screen. You can zoom on the map for better resolution. [Fig. 012]	Fig. 012 - Zooming of NUTS level map
Most PoMM analyses will be probably reflected in NUTS 2 or NUTS 3 level areas. If you select NUTS 3 level, you can also choose Local administrative units (LAU) from the contextual drop-down menu. [Fig. 013]	Fig. 013 - LAU Level selection
Once the NUTS/LAU is selected, confirm selection to set the LAU code, if needed. [Fig. 014]	Fig. 014 - Confirm LAU selection
Press |Next ->| to complete the geographical information. [Fig.015] If you realise you have made a mistake, you can go back and change your choice clicking on |<- Back| . The geographical boudaries of your system is now completed.	Fig. 015 - Press |Next ->|

(2) Select the targeted Natural based solution

The same reflection made for the territorial dimension applies to the type of NBS solution you are investigating: again, not all solutions act on all territorial levels or require same implementation or regulatory processes. Also in this case the PoMM allows you to keep track of this in your simulation even though in this case the identification and evaluation of the NBS should have already been developed in other sections of the AI platform that are dedicated to this purpose.

The definition of your case study should be linked to the choice of the NBSs you would like to apply: to investigate which NBS is right for you, you will have already used other areas of the AI platform. In this section of the module, you can select them to keep track of your starting framework. However, if in your case study, you do not need to select an NBS, you can simply confirm your choice not to select it. [Fig. 016]	Fig. 016 - NBS selection menu
Choose NBS from the drop-down menu and press on |Confirm selection|. [Fig. 017] The candidate NBS solutions in the drop-down menu are those made available from the University of Cantabria on the AI platform in the solution library section.	Fig. 017 - Select NBS from drop-down menu
The system will display a brief description of the selected NBS: you can then either verify your choice. [Fig. 018] Press |Next ->| to complete the NBS information. If you realise you have made a mistake, you can go back and change your choice clicking on |<- Back| returning to the NUTS choice screen. The NBS selection for your unit of analysis is now completed.	Fig. 018 - Description of NBS solution

(3) Choose the targeted Contaminants of emerging concern (CEC)

The contaminants you are investigating are also related both to the NBS solutions you have chosen and to specific problems that equally may have to be considered in very different policy making processes. Again, the PoMM allows you to keep track of them in your simulation of the CECs you have identified. As with NBSs, the identification of targeted CECs should already have been developed in other sections of the AI platform that are dedicated to this very purpose.

Next step in defining your case study (or unit of analysis) is the choice of CECs : to investigate which CEC is more relevant in your case, you will have already used other areas of the AI platform. In this section of the module, you can select them to keep track of your starting framework. [Fig. 019]	Fig. 019 - CECs selection menu
Select family of CEC from the drop-down menu. The target CECs are chosen from a list provided by D4RUNOFF Partners working on the topic on the AI platform in the CECs library section. If you want to refine your search, you can also select compounds or CAS from the drop-down menu. [Fig. 020]. Press on |Confirm selection|.	Fig. 020 - CECs family selection
If you realise you have made a mistake, you can go back and change your choice clicking on |<- Back| returning to the NBS choice screen. [Fig. 021]. Press |Next| to complete the CEC information. The CEC selection for your unit of analysis is now completed.	Fig. 021 - Confirm CECs selection

Fig. 022 - Write notes - Unity of Analysis (NUTS, NBS, CECs)

The system allows you to keep a note of the choices you have made, possibly adding your comments so as to keep a written trace that will feed back into the reporting of your experiment. [Fig. 022]

You can also leave the proposed text unchanged in the dialogue box that appears but we suggest you that you use these spaces to make your notes.

The activity of modelling decision making processes and scenario setting is a complex activity that may also require interactions and comparisons between different actors. By doing so, you do not risk losing valuable information.

With this first three steps you have completed the Unity of analysis definition (NUTS, NBS & CEC)

To proceed to the next stage of your case study baseline press |Next|.

(4) Define the actual (current) decision workflow diagram

To be able to intervene in a decision-making process and understand where and how, it is necessary to describe it.

In the PoMM, this description is done through the use of an interface to represent the decision-making diagrams. The notation used is the BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation). [Fig. 023]	Fig. 023 - Description of decision-making process
BPMN is a visual modelling language for process workflows. It is an open standard notation for graphical flowcharts that can be easily understood by all stakeholders. [Fig. 024]. In our case, the BPMN represents the end-to-end flow of a policy process. The notation makes it possible to coordinate the sequence of processes and messages flowing between different process participants in a set of related steps. Even using only the basic notations of the BPMN, you can describe all usual procedural steps in policy and decision making processes.	Fig. 024 - Example of decision-making process in BPMN
Here you find some basic hints for using BPMN notation with the PoMM BPMN interface.	Fig. 025 -BMPN basic notation
If you do not want to describe your process directly within the PoMM BPMN interface or you already have designed your BPMN diagram using your modelling software, you can use your saved file. Upload it simply dragging and dropping in the interface. But please make it sure it is in a compatible format (that is *.bpmn) otherwise you'll get an error message.
To facilitate this step, if you are not familiar with the BPMN diagram, you can also choose an easy route where you can use some ready-made templates. In this case, you should start the outline of your case from the main PoMM menu selecting the |Process Template| option instead of |Start new session| .	Fig. 026 - Process template selection
You have to answer a short survey to select what are the central policy issue you will explore, defining what type of action (regulatory or operative) do you plan to carry out, and what is your policy decision framework (risk driven, value driven or return driven). The system will take care of selecting the most suitable template based on the strategy you have chosen. Of course this is an example, which is plausible but which you should then adjust according to your needs: your real situation may in fact be different from the one proposed.	Fig. 027 - Template survey: choose your strategy
Then, after answering the survey, you proceed normally from step (1) Defining the geographic boundaries of your physical system to the initial setting as explained before.
When you get to step (4) Define the actual (current) decision workflow diagram you will already find on the PoMM BPMN interface a ready-made template chosen on the basis of your answers and pre-designed on a plausible similar case. You can modify it to adapt it to your case, removing some steps, revising annotations, adding elements etc.	Fig. 28 - Automatically uploaded BPMN template directly in the BPMN io interface
Now you need to individuate which are the entities in your process you consider potentially interesting for the subsequent modelling and simulation of policy making and interventions on it. Depending on the focus of your investigation, you will need to ask yourself, for example, which elements of the process you want to concentrate on and define the variables that best express them. For example, if you think you can influence a task in your process that is ‘holding public meetings’ (perhaps to discuss the inclusion of NBS solutions in current construction processes), the linked variable could be ‘the level or index of stakeholder and local community involvement’. The reason why this step is necessary is precisely to allow you to isolate, in the decision-making process, the network of relationships that you are most interested in investigating, in order to allow simulations to understand what further actions (in relation to those identified) you can take to achieve your objectives. If you opt for the |Process Template| option, you will find these elements already prepared in the templates and they can serve as an example to ease your analysis.	Fig. 29 - Example of BPMN selected entity and relevant variable
For each selected entity you must add an annotation indicating what is the main variable associated to it. Generally you will add notes to some of the tasks that are present in your BPMN process. You can do this simply by using the small tool that appears when you pass the mouse over the ‘task’ object and than "add a text annotation" and write the not. It will appear next to the task.	Fig. 030 - Annotate an entity of your process
Taking care to choose and describe the variables in such a way that they can be measured in a minimum to maximum range: this method will help you a lot in the following steps of modelling. The annotation of entities is a fundamental step, otherwise it will not possible to define those that you want to deal with in the subsequent modelling and simulation network. To have a fairly rich and interesting simulation, we suggest you identify at least 7 variables connected to the different entities in your process diagram (it would be better between 7 and 12). Bear in mind that this step helps you to reflect in a very precise way on the case you are analysing, helping you a lot to outline the most interesting elements.	Fig. 031 - BMPN annotation
If you annotated or modified a diagram (whether it is the diagram that you create directly in the interface, or the one that you modify starting from a loaded template or from your file that you have uploaded to the system) you must select the |Next| button and continue your simulation up to the next check point (see below: 5 - Identify the most important entities for the decision workflow) otherwise your annotations are permanently lost!	Fig. 032 - Push the NEXT button otherwise your changes will be lost!

(5) Identify the most important entities for the decision workflow

Once you have defined in the previous step the decision-making process involved as it currently is, having identified some entities to analyse and their variables, you will have to go through the last mile of this phase in order to have your first baseline report.

This involves selecting the variables that you defined in the BPMN in the form of notes and that will be shown in an interface where you can decide which ones will be analysed in the simulation.

Note that if you haven't inserted any variables in your BPMN (in the form of an annotation) you won't be able to select any nodes and therefore won't be able to proceed with the simulation proposed by the PoMM.

After clicking on |NEXT| from the BPMN interface, you will find yourself in the environment for identifying the variables you have focused on. They will appear in the form of clickable nodes that you can select.	Fig. 033 - Identification of selected entities
The interface allows you to select each node that will appear on the map box: click to confirm your selection (the node turn red).	Fig. 034 - List of selected entities
You can also select your nodes from the drop-down menu above the map box.	Fig. 035 - List of selected entities (drop-down menu)
In any case, before proceeding further, check carefully which nodes you have selected. Press the button |Next to checkpoint| to complete this first cycle and download the file package related to the outline of your case study.	Fig. 036 - Before press Next to checkpoint verify carefully your choices!
You can add your comments about the work you have done in outlining the decision-making process you want to intervene in and have identified your points of interest. This will help you keep track of your reasoning and will flow into a report that you can share. After adding your comments push |NEXT|.	Fig. 037 - Add notes
Now you are asked to download the Intermediate Report of your Experiment that describes what you have done until now, to outline the case under study and set the boundaries of the experiment. In addition, the work done will be saved so that you can restore your session if you need so. You must download the Intermediate Report and the back-up files to be allowed to the next step: this is a form of guarantee to prevent you from losing the data you have entered. The system does not automatically save them for privacy reasons.	Fig. 038 - Download the Intermediate Report and all the experiment data
If you don't intend to continue with the analysis after this check point, by downloading the file package you can also restore the session in another moment deciding which of the phases to restore. From point 1, reloading your choice of NUTS, NBS, CEC; from point 2 reloading your BPMN diagramming file, from point 3 also reloading your chosen entities. You can decide to load also the entire package which will include the notes you added at this checkpoint, allowing you to start again right where you left off and beginning the simulation. To restore your file, if needed, access from the PoMM main menu on |Restore Session|.	Fig. 039 - Restore Session from main PoMM menu
The *zip file you download at the Intermediate Report checkpoint contains 3 folders and a series of files necessary for the various restore phases.	Fig. 040 Files contained in your download compressed folder
A very simple interface will guide you through restoring them. Please be careful! Upload the files gradually in the order in which they are requested by the interface. Once you have uploaded the first ones, you can proceed further in the restore by pressing |Continue to upload|.	Fig. 041 - Restore network modelling session from Intermediate Report & files

Bottom-up modelling (agent based) of the case

Outiline the case for ABM exploration

Fig. 042 - Agent Simulation

The Agent simulation is a separate function of the PoMM module, based on netLogo Web application, which you can access through the main menu.

In this case, your interface will directly load a basic simulation model. This model was prepared as part of the D4Runoff project for the PoMM module.

043 - ABM Netlogo Interface

This is an agent-based model simulating the adoption dynamics of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) within an urban environment. It explores how citizens, property owners, and a dynamic public authority interact under risks from flooding and Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) pollution in urban runoff. The model focuses particularly on how different conditions and policy choices influence NBS uptake and its subsequent impact on mitigating pollution.

The interface is a console from which all the necessary simulations can be carried out using a series of elements already present.

Before starting: How the model works

The model operates on a 2D grid representing an urban area, with a portion designated as water. Land patches have varying elevation and initial flood/pollution risk based on proximity to water and elevation. These risks decay slowly over time.

When the model has only just been loaded, the grid appears black.

1. Environmental Events: Stochastic flood and pollution events occur based on user-defined frequencies and intensities. Events increase risk locally on affected patches and add to the memory of agents present. Pollution events also directly increase CEC contamination in water bodies.

2. Agents:

• Citizens & Owners: Perceive risk based on local patch conditions, mitigation from nearby NBS, and proximity to water. They maintain a decaying memory of past risk events. Their sentiment towards NBS adoption evolves based on: Positive Boost: A city-wide, non-cumulative boost occurs once per day if any CEC monitor detects high contamination (>0.5). Negative Feedback: Sentiment decreases slightly if the average city-wide CEC contamination remains below a threshold (hardcoded: 0.15) for a sustained period (hardcoded: 30 days). Social Influence: Weekly adjustments based on the average sentiment of nearby agents.
• Decision Making: Citizens may petition the Public Authority (PA) if memory and risk are high, and may relocate if risk is persistently high and they have economic capacity. Owners decide whether to adopt NBS based on their type: Residential: Considers sentiment, risk, NBS cost, and economic capacity (adjusted for tax burden). Commercial: Calculates Return on Investment (ROI) based on risk reduction potential vs. NBS cost.
• NBS: Created by owners upon adoption. Attributes (cost, mitigation power, radius) depend on the owner's risk level at the time of adoption. NBS reduce local risk as they become effective, but their effectiveness can decay over time.
• CEC Monitors: Located in water bodies, they can directly mitigate very high local CEC levels (>0.7) and trigger the city-wide positive sentiment boost (>0.5).
• Public Authority (PA): Dynamics (Monthly): Its political-alignment (pro-environment vs. pro-development), policy-strength, and influence-strength are updated based on average risk, average CEC, petition count, its own budget, and user-set sensitivity parameters (sliders). Higher pressure/pollution tends to push alignment towards pro-environment (+1), influencing policy strength and tax rates. Actions (Annual/Ongoing): Collects taxes (rate influenced by alignment/policy strength; agent contribution based on economic capacity and risk exposure), adjusts its budget, probabilistically offers subsidies for NBS adoption to high-risk owners if budget allows.

3. Key Feedbacks: The model includes loops such as: Risk -> Sentiment/Petitions -> PA Dynamics -> Taxes/Subsidies -> Agent Economics -> NBS Adoption -> Risk Mitigation. Also: Pollution -> Monitor Detection -> Sentiment Boost/Drop -> Adoption -> Mitigation -> Pollution. How to use it

How to use it

Interface Controls:

Fig. 043 - ABM Interface: sliders & switches

Sliders:

• flood-frequency-slider, pollution-frequency-slider: Control the daily probability of flood/pollution events (0-0.2).
• flood-intensity-mean-slider, pollution-intensity-mean-slider: Set the average intensity for events (0-1).
• flood-intensity-sd-slider, pollution-intensity-sd-slider: Set the standard deviation for event intensity (0-0.5).
• num-citizens-slider, num-owners-slider, num-cec-monitors-slider: Set the initial number of these agents.
• pressure-sensitivity-slider: Controls how strongly citizen pressure (risk, petitions) influences PA political alignment (0-0.1).
• env-sensitivity-slider: Controls how strongly the average CEC level directly influences PA political alignment (0-0.1).
• budget-influence-on-policy-slider: Controls how much the PA's budget constrains its potential policy strength (0-1).

Switches:

• inequality-distribution: Toggles initial economic capacity distribution between 'Equal' (off, random uniform) and 'Pareto-like' (on, 20% high/80% low capacity).

Fig. 044 - ABM Interface: Buttons

Buttons:

• setup: Initializes the model based on current interface settings. Clears previous runs.
• go: Runs the simulation for one step (one day).
• go-forever: Runs the simulation continuously until stopped.

Fig. 045 - ABM Interface: Monitors

Monitors:

• total-nbs-adopted-monitor: Current count of active NBS solutions.
• avg-risk-exposure-monitor: Average risk perceived by citizens and owners.
• avg-nbs-sentiment-monitor: Average NBS adoption sentiment across citizens and owners.
• avg-cec-contamination-monitor: Average CEC level across all water bodies.
• (Optional monitors can be added for PA dynamic attributes)

Fig. 046 - ABM Interface: Plots

Plots:

• risk-exposure-plot: Average risk exposure over time.
• nbs-sentiment-plot: Average NBS sentiment over time.
• cec-contamination-plot: Average CEC contamination over time.
• pa-attributes-plot: Tracks PA's dynamic attributes (influence-strength, policy-strength, public-budget, taxation-rate). Ensure pens named "influence", "policy", "budget", "taxation" exist.

View:

Fig. 047 - ABM Interface: View

• Patches show water (blue, darker = higher CEC), land (green, darker = higher elevation), initial risk zones, agent risk (gradient green->orange->red), or NBS presence (yellow).

• Agents have distinct shapes (person, house, square, building, plant). Size can indicate attributes like economic capacity or effectiveness.

You can see the view in the black window when you push the |set up| button.

You will need to outline the case for ABM exploration by following the steps below, starting with the ABM modelling setup.

(1) Set up the ABM model

The set-up is very simple in this case because you only have to press the corresponding button on the left side of the console.

The viewer will animate and the starting situation with the agents and default conditions will be presented. The values shown in the monitors will automatically adapt to the starting configuration where needed.

Fig. 048 - The set up in D4Runoff ABM modelling

(2) Run the baseline configuration

The model must be run to see how, over a given period, the values of the parameters set by default produce a series of effects.

This means that you are not currently “intervening” in the model (you are not changing the set parameters) but first trying to understand how it evolves in the absence of any intervention.

To run the baseline you can choose to use the |go| button or the |go forever| button. In the first case, you can follow the system's evolution step by step ( one step-one day) and analyse them. In the second, you will see how the trends evolve and you can decide to stop the analysis at any time by pressing the same |go forever| again to stop the experiment.	Fig. 049 - ABM simulation after some ticks
As you can see, the system has evolved autonomously. You can control what has changed by checking the values in the monitors or the graphs in the plots.	Fig. 050 - Check the plots and the monitor to control the system
You have a number of possibilities to check the evolution of the data. For each of the plots you can: view the zoomed chart on a new page to investigate it in the best possible way print the chart download the chart with different file extensions (png, jpg, pdf, svg) for different use download the data in csv format and read them with any calculation programme.	Fig. 051 - Zooming, saving or downloading plots
This information is crucial for the next step of understanding how to try to calibrate the different parameters to make specific analysis.

Please note that an extensive documentation about NetLogo and its features is at your disposal selecting the |About NetLogo| in the menu bar on the top of the application.

Questioning, analysis and reporting for decision support

Implementation of policy and decision-making experiments (procedural view)

Design the experiment(s)

Run the experiment(s)

Analyze the output of the experiment(s)

Documenting and reporting policy and decision-making experiments

Report the findings