The emergence of climate change mitigation action by society: An agent-based scenario discovery study

Developing model-based narratives of society’s response to climate change is challenged by two factors. First, society’s response to possible future climate change is subject to many uncertainties. Second, we argue that society’s mitigation action emerge out of the actions and interactions of the many actors in society. Together, these two...

Fast and accurate sensitivity analysis of IMPT treatment plans using Polynomial Chaos Expansion

The highly conformal planned dose distribution achievable in intensity modulated proton therapy (IMPT) can severely be compromised by uncertainties in patient setup and proton range. While several robust optimization approaches have been presented to address this issue, appropriate methods to accurately estimate the robustness of treatment...

Auctions for Congestion Management in Distribution Grids

Large controllable loads, such as electric vehicles, are increasingly penetrating electricity distribution feeders. To avoid local congestion, their consumption behaviour must be steered, for which a real-time price propagated down from the transmission system does not suffice, as it does not reflect local grid conditions. To efficiently steer...

Weshareit: A Nexus Approach To Nile Basin Water Resources Management

Error propagation in the computation of volumes in 3D city models with the Monte Carlo method

This paper describes the analysis of the propagation of positional uncertainty in 3D city models to the uncertainty in the computation of their volumes. Current work related to error propagation in GIS is limited to 2D data and 2D GIS operations, especially of rasters. In this research we have (1) developed two engines, one that generates random...

Optimal Control of Water Systems Under Forecast Uncertainty: Robust, Proactive, and Integrated

Water systems consist of natural and man-made objects serving multiple essential purposes. They are affected by many types of meteorological disturbances. In order to deal with these disturbances and to serve the desired objectives, infrastructures have been built and managed by societies for specific purposes. Given a water system, and its...

Sunscreens with Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) Nano-Particles: A Societal Experiment

The risks of novel technologies, such as nano(bio)technology cannot be fully assessed due to the existing uncertainties surrounding their introduction into society. Consequently, the introduction of innovative technologies can be conceptualised as a societal experiment, which is a helpful approach to evaluate moral acceptability. This approach...

Eddy covariance observations of methane and nitrous oxide emissions: Towards more accurate estimates from ecosystems

About 30% of the increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are related to land use changes and agricultural activities. In order to select effective measures, knowledge is required about GHG emissions from these ecosystems and how these emissions are influenced by management and...

Uncertainty from Model Calibration: Applying a New Method to Transport Energy Demand Modelling

Uncertainties in energy demand modelling originate from both limited understanding of the real-world system and a lack of data for model development, calibration and validation. These uncertainties allow for the development of different models, but also leave room for different calibrations of a single model. Here, an automated model calibration...

Policy advice derived from simulation models

When advising policy we face the fundamental problem that economic processes are connected with uncertainty and thus policy can err. In this paper we show how the use of simulation models can reduce policy errors. We suggest that policy is best based on socalled abductive simulation models, which help to better understand how policy measures can...

Ensemble predictions of hydro-biogeochemical fluxes at the landscape scale

Model predictions of biogeochemical fluxes on the landscape scale are highly uncertain, both with respect to stochastic (parameter) and structural uncertainty. The idea of our ensemble modelling approach is to reduce the predictive uncertainty by covering part of the parameter and model structural uncertainty. In this study 4 different models...