Methodology: Human-Landscape 4D Visualization

Many landscapes or human-landscape processes are experiencing drastic changes in the context of many ecological, socio-political, and institutional pressures. The CHES group has been employing 4-dimensional (x, y, z, time) simulation and animation to help landscape modelers or managers answer questions such as: What are the driving forces behind the observed changes? What are the interrelationships among these forces? What scenarios may occur if certain changes are made here and there? Are there any tipping points or threshold numbers in the landscape change process such that passing these points or numbers may bring in significant, irreversible changes?

We the CHES members have developed two models or demos to answer these questions. One is a 4-D demo showing what hazards may happen to pedestrians if fires come near the streets on the north-west corner of the Colorado Springs. This demo presents pedestrian evacuation scenarios due to the Waldo Canyon Fire (2012). The other is a web-based agent-based model that simulates complex feedback loops among the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire at Colorado, river geomorphological change, and human adaptations (e.g., building a fence, paving the channel bedrock) over both space and time. The following paper provides more background about the model and demo. Try the model and demo now.

Readings and References:

An, L., B.L. Turner II., J. Liu, V. Grimm, Q. Zhang, Z. Wang, R. Huang (in revision). Agent-based complex systems science in the era of global sustainability crisis.

Chin, A., L. An, J. Florsheim, L. Laurencio, R. Marston, A. Parker, G. Simon, and E. Wohl (2016). Feedbacks in human-landscape systems: lessons from the Waldo Canyon Fire of Colorado, USA. Geomorphology 252: 40-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.07.030

Examples, Models, and/or Documents:

3DS Max Demo

River Geomorphology ABM-6.0.