ECTS credits:
4 (2+2)
Course parameters:
Language: English
Level of course: PhD course
Time of year: Autumn 2021
No. of contact hours/hours in total incl. preparation, assignment(s) or the like: Preparation for lecture (10hr), Lecture (15hr), Preparation for exercise (10hr), Working on exercise (15hr), Project and report (50hr)
Capacity limits: 25 participants
Objectives of the course:
To introduce students to modelling agents, landscapes & humans, pesticide risk assessment & workflows in A systems simulation approach to environmental & wildlife management (ALMaSS).
Learning outcomes and competences:
At the end of the course, the student should be able to demonstrate knowledge of:
Compulsory programme:
Lectures and hands-on exercise
Course contents:
Day 1
o General introduction to ALMaSS and course overview
o Agent based modelling - An introduction to agents, species modelling, the model cycle and model development steps as well as ALMaSS main components
o Introduction to the hare and the skylark models - what do they describe and how they work, with some examples of use
o Exercise: Using ALMaSS to look at population effects using hare and skylark
Day 2
o Introduction to sub-population modelling in ALMaSS, what, why and how.
o Landscape introduction
§ the roles of a LS model for ALMaSS (the spatial dimension)
§ the core properties of an ALMaSS LS model ... raster, completeness, unique polygons, static/dynamic LS elements, polygon attributes (TOLE, F-type, soil, etc.)
o Mapping of agricultural areas
§ significance of agricultural areas in ALMaSS
§ how they are handled in ALMaSS (as dynamic components, exploiting farm-id, farm-type, crop rotations, crop management, veg growth curves, etc."
o Exercise: Landscape generation
Day 3
o Introduction to dynamic aspects of landscape
o Introduction to pesticide risk assessment
o Introduction to pesticide modelling in ALMaSS
o Exercise: Using ALMaSS yourselves (participants)
Day 4
o Introduction to honey-bee colony model for risk assessment (ApisRAM)
o Introduction to toolchain in ALMaSS
o Exercise: The developers toolchain
Day 5
o Introduction to Multi-criteria decision-making
o Modelling human species
o Exercise: Human decision making and scenarios
Prerequisites:
Master’s degree
Name of lecturers:
Christopher John Topping, James Henty Williams, Andrey Chuhutin, Geoffrey Brian Groom, Elżbieta Ziółkowska, Luna Kondrup Marcussen, Xiaodong Duan
Type of course/teaching methods:
Online teaching
Course homepage:
https://projects.au.dk/sess/courses-and-workshops/
Course assessment:
Participants attending all the lecture and exercise receive 2 ECTS. In addition to this, a mini project with a report must be delivered in order to receive full 4 ECTS.
Provider:
Department of Bioscience
Special comments on this course:
None
Time:
18-22 October 2021
Place:
Online
Registration:
Deadline for registration is 30 September 2021. Sign up via the course website here: https://projects.au.dk/sess/courses-and-workshops/online-almass-course/
If you have any questions, please contact Luna Kondrup Marcussen, e-mail: lkm@bios.au.dk
