A system dynamics model of a predator-prey lifecycle relationship

•Wet Period Case

Ce modèle est une simulation classique du cycle de productivité dans l'océan, incluant les effets de la thermocline pour désactiver l'advection d'éléments nutritifs dissous et de détritus à la couche superficielle.  

Challenges in sustainability are multilevel.
This diagram attempts to summarize levels of self reinforcing destructive dynamics, authors that deal with them, and point of leverage for change.

The base of the crisis is a mechanistic rather than ecological worldview. This mechanistic worldview is based on outdated science that assumed the universe to be a large machine. In a machine there is an inside and an outside. The health of the inside is important for the machine, the outside not. In an ecological view everything is interconnected, there is no clear separation in the future of self and other. All parts influence the health of other parts. To retain health sensitivity and democracy are inherent. The sense of separation from other that keeps the mechanistic worldview dominant is duality. Being cut off from spiritual traditions due to a mechanistic view of science people need access to inter-spirituality to reconnect with the human traditions and tools around connectedness, inner discovery, and compassion. Many books on modern physics and biology deal with the system view implications. "The coming interspiritual age" deals with the need to connect spiritual traditions and science.

At the bottom for the dynamic is an individual a sense of disconnectedness leads to a dependency on spending and having rather than connecting. The connecting has become too painful and dealing with it unpopular in our culture. Joanna Macy deals with this in Active Hope. 

This affluenza and disconnection is worsened by a market that floods one with advertisements aimed at creating needs and a sense of dissatisfaction with that one has.

National economies are structured around maximising GDP which means maximising consumption and financial capital movement. This is at the cost of local economies. These same local economies are needed for balanced happiness as well as for sustainability.

Generally institutions focus on maximising consumption rather than sustaining life support systems. David Korten covers this well.

Power and wealth is confused in this worldview. In striving for wealth only power is striven for in the form of money and monopoly.

Those at the head of large banks and corporations tend to be there because they exemplify this approach. They have few scruples about enforcing this approach onto everyone through wars and disaster capitalism. Naomi Klein and David Estulin documented this.

Power has become so centralized that we need this understanding to be widespread and include many of those in power. Progress of all of these levels are needed to show them and all that another way is possible.

Fooodwaste happens everywhere and in every part of the food cycle even if nobody wants it to happen. 

We created a local solution to reduce the waste. This solution is situated in Belgium (Kotrijk) where an exchange system (for services) already exists and it is called letsleie http://www.letsleie.be.  We did choose letstlei because their exchange system doesn’t work with money but with a fictive money system "vlasbloemen". In their system we want to integrate the exchange of food leftovers. After some years the system could become world wide. 

Our solution begins with an event in a neighbourhood or apartments. This event brings the neighbours together who don't know each anymore. It explains the existing system and the problems of the food waste. Every person had to take a leftover and chefs will create a delicious meal of it. The members will receive a food box who is biodegradable and contains a QR code that will simplify the food/ service exchange. 

 People will talk to each other after the event and more and more people will join without needing new publicity.

Simple model to illustrate an annual cycle for phytoplankton biomass in temperate waters.
Potential primary production uses Steele's equation and a Michaelis-Menten (or Monod) function for nutrient limitation. Respiratory losses are only a function of biomass.

This model uses simple functions (converters, cosine) to simulate the water balance inside a reservoir.

Primitives for Watershed modeling project. Click Clone Insight at the top right to make a copy that you can edit.

The converter in this file contains precipitation for Tucson only. Tucson watersheds are Arroyo Chico, Canada Agua, and Lower Canada del Oro.

This stock and flow diagram is a working draft of a conceptual model of a dune-lake system in the Northland region of New Zealand.

Simple model to illustrate oyster growth based on primary production of Phytoplankton as a state variable, forced by light and nutrients, running for a yearly period.

Phytoplankton growth based on on Steele's and Michaelis-Menten equations), where: 

Primary Production=(([Pmax]*[I]/[Iopt]*exp(1-[I]/[Iopt])*[S])/([Ks]+[S]))

Pmax: Maximum production (d-1)
I: Light energy at depth of interest (uE m-2 s-1)
Iopt: Light energy at which Pmax occurs (uE m-2 s-1)
S: Nutrient concentration (umol N L-1)
Ks: Half saturation constant for nutrient (umol N L-1).

Further developments:
- Nutrients as state variable in cycle with detritus from phytoplankton and oyster biomass.
- Light limited by the concentration of phytoplankton.
- Temperature effect on phytoplankton and Oyster growth.

The time-variable solution to a step-function change in inflow concentration for an ideal, completely mixed lake.

The following insight shows the level of crime in the town of Bourke in comparison to the levels of Police and Community Engagement

This model describes the N isotope dynamics in a marine system where the shallowness of the chemocline prevents significant nitrification near the base of the photic zone.

The following insight shows the level of crime in the town of Bourke in comparison to the levels of Police and Community Engagement

How the 4-H club became a marketing thingy for DuPont

European Masters in System Dynamics 2016
New University of Lisbon, Portugal

Simple model to represent oyster individual growth by simulating feeding and metabolism.

The Logistic Map is a polynomial mapping (equivalently, recurrence relation) of degree 2, often cited as an archetypal example of how complex, chaotic behaviour can arise from very simple non-linear dynamical equations. The map was popularized in a seminal 1976 paper by the biologist Robert May, in part as a discrete-time demographic model analogous to the logistic equation first created by Pierre François Verhulst. 

Mathematically, the logistic map is written

where:

 is a number between zero and one, and represents the ratio of existing population to the maximum possible population at year n, and hence x0 represents the initial ratio of population to max. population (at year 0)r is a positive number, and represents a combined rate for reproduction and starvation. To generate a bifurcation diagram, set 'r base' to 2 and 'r ramp' to 1
To demonstrate sensitivity to initial conditions, try two runs with 'r base' set to 3 and 'Initial X' of 0.5 and 0.501, then look at first ~20 time steps

A system dynamics model of a predator-prey lifecycle relationship

Primitives for Watershed modeling project. Click Clone Insight at the top right to make a copy that you can edit.

The converter in this file contains precipitation for Phoenix only.

Concepts are designed for Universatility and local variables without forcing a one size fits all model. 

Measurements in the course are designed to maintain a system perspective in all planning and measurement systems. 

In Chile, 60% of its population are exposed to levels of Particulate Matter (PM) above international standards. Air Pollution is causing 4,000 premature deaths per year, including health costs over US$8 billion.

Second Draft