Paramo and High-Andean Simulation using Reactive Agents

Hydrological Role of High Andean Ecosystems

J. A. Villarraga Morales and L. D. Alvarado Nieto

Departament of Engineering, Universidad Distrital, Bogotá D.C, Colombia

Keywords: Ecosystems Simulation, Simple Reactive Agents, Artificial Intelligence.

Abstract: Ecosystems like Páramos and High-Andean forests have a very important role as regulators of the water

process for the majority of rivers in Colombia. For this reason, a simulation, which shows the main functions

performed by them, was developed. Simple reactive agents was the technique used in order to simulate these

ecosystems and their components. the results obtained reaffirm the ecological importance both (paramos and

High-Andean forests) for Equatorial countries.

1 INTRODUCTION

Colombia is a country with an exceptional natural

wealth because it’s conformed by diverse ecosystems,

and geographic characteristics, which together make

of it a unique country. Clear examples of this wealth

are the paramos, ecosystems located at great heights

in the equatorial zone and with a great ecological

value for the countries that possess them (Russi et al.,

2013).

Paramos are natural water regulators, thanks to

theirs types of soil and vegetation, they can absorb the

water of the rains and later release it towards the

tributaries that feed the main rivers of the country.

Also, those soils are covered by a great amount of

organic matter that prevents the release of captured

CO2 into the atmosphere (IUCN, 2010).

Although there’s a lot of benefits that paramos

give to Colombian population, some people don’t

take care of those fantastic and important places, and

with activities like mining, agricultural expansion and

afforestation they are damaging them

(GREENPEACE, 2013).

Reasons like these motivate to the “Universidad

Distrital Francisco José de Caldas”’ complexity

group to contribute with the paramos care, and

actually, the group is into a developing project, about

an application that simulates a paramo ecosystem

using simple reactive agents.

The main goal is to develop a game where

children can interact with nature ecosystems (as

paramos, High-Andean forests), transform them in

other kind of environments (mixed or urban

ecosystems) and understand the positive or negative

effects of such interaction. However, for this paper,

the objective is only to make a model and simulation

of the ecosystems logical part.

2 MODELLING ECOSYSTEM

COMPONENTS

Simple reactive agents is the main technique used for

modelling paramo components, given that this one is

based on action and reaction processes, allowing the

components interaction of a dynamic system

(Vlahavas and Dimitris, 2005).

Basically, plants, rivers, soils, and other

ecosystem components are modeled in this section,

showing the main interactions of these components

and defining their roles (sensor or effector) as reactive

agents.

2.1 Modelling Photosynthesis of a Plant

Photosynthesis is a very important process made by

the majority of the plants, which allow them make

their own food and purify the air (Flexas et al., 2012),

It is therefore required to build the representative

model of the plant.

Analyzing the Figure 1, the interaction plant-air

and plant-root is generated by the root (sensor) and

leaves (sensor and effector) of the plant, and all the

information obtained in such interaction is processed

by the following control rules:

Morales, J. and Nieto, L.

Paramo and High-Andean Simulation using Reactive Agents - Hydrological Role of High Andean Ecosystems.

DOI: 10.5220/0006379301390143

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Complexity, Future Information Systems and Risk (COMPLEXIS 2017), pages 139-143

ISBN: 978-989-758-244-8

139

 Leaves: If air has sunlight, then absorb CO

and

sunlight, also if plant has water, then absorb

water.

 Root: If water capability of plant isn’t full, get

water of soil

 Leaves: Generate glucose using photosynthesis

general equation.

 Leaves: Release by-products from the

photosynthesis process.

Photosynthesis process is based on the equation 1

(Palmeri et al., 2014), for this reason all the elements

absorbed by the plant agent are measured in moles:

6CO

+6H2O+Photo energy = C

+6O

(1)

Figure 1: Model of plant using reactive agents.

2.2 Modelling Paramo and High

Andean Forest Ecosystems

Colombian paramos have denoted characteristics like

unique vegetation, soils and animals, and a lot of

tributaries, lakes and creeks (Vásquez and Buitrago,

2011). However, this simulation is being focused only

in the vegetal and hydrological part.

With respect to High Andean Forest (HA-forest),

the main goal is to show the role that it plays as a

water regulator and air purifier, because a large

amount of water that is evaporated by the HA-forest

to the environment returns in form of rain that falls on

the paramos.

The main interactions of ecosystems are

represented in the following figure.

Figure 2: Model of paramo using reactive agents.

Ecosystem interaction (either paramo or high

Andean forest) with the environment is represented

by the Figure 2. The following rules of control are

generated from this model:

 Plant: Through the photosynthesis process, plants

release oxygen and water into the air.

 Soil: Absorb a percentage of rainwater and the rest

is released to the tributaries. In the case of the

paramos, their soils have the ability to retain

rainwater and then release it slowly, this is the

reason why paramos are so important in the

hydrological process of Colombia (Díaz-

Granados Ortiz et al., 2005).

 Tributaries: They collect all rainwater and water

released by soils in order to transport it to rivers.

3 ECOSYSTEM COMPONENTS

INTERACTION

Interactions of ecosystems are very important in order

to understand how the simulation was developed. For

this reason, the majority of such interactions are

represented by activity diagrams showed in this

section.

3.1 Territory Interactions

Taking into account the Territory entity as the main

ecosystem formed by other ecosystems like paramos

and High-Andean Forest, the Figure 3 represents the

top level in the simulation. In this one, the different

ecosystems, clouds and other components interact

through time.

Time entity is composed of minutes, hours, and

days. This entity verifies if is day or night changing

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the light state to day when hour=6 and night when

hour=18 because in Equatorial countries like

Colombia, days and nights are 12 hours each one.

Figure 3: Territory activity diagram.

Finally, Cloud entity stores a certain amount of

water from the Air entity, and if the variable rain is

true then a rainfall percent is stored by the Territory

entity. Else, the probability of rain is increased, this

probability is given according to the day because

every day represents a month of the year and so every

day has a different probability.

These processes are performed repeatedly until

the end of Day 12, which is the December

representation. Then the Time entity is restarted.

3.2 Plant Interactions

Interaction of the Plant entity with its components is

represented by the Figure 4, where main processes

made by this one are photosynthesis and absorb

water.

Photosynthesis is performed by the Leaves entity.

Processes like absorb CO

from Air entity, absorb

water from Plant entity and verify if the day variable

is true are validated. Then, the glucose is made and

O and O

are released into the Air entity. This

process is performed only if the day variable has true

value.

Figure 4: Plant activity diagram.

Absorb water is the second process, for this one

The Plant entity verifies if the its water storage

capacity is full. Else, the Root entity absorbs water

from Soil entity increasing the water stored boy the

Plant entity.

The Figure 4 represents internal interactions of the

Plant entity. Nevertheless, the Figure 5 shows

external interactions, allowing to observe the

dependencies between this entity and other

components.

3.3 Ecosystem Interactions

Perhaps, Figure 5 is the most important diagram

because this shows the general interaction of the

components. For example, plant processes, which

allow you to understand how plants collect CO2 from

the air and release water and oxygen into the air.

Other important aspect is the rainfall distributed

between the soil and the river and how the soil also

releases water into the river.

Both ecosystems (paramo and High-Andean

forest) were simulated using the Ecosystem activity

diagram and results obtained are exposed in the

following section.

Paramo and High-Andean Simulation using Reactive Agents - Hydrological Role of High Andean Ecosystems

141

Figure 5: Ecosystem activity diagram.

4 RESULTS

In order to test different scenarios, were performed

three simulations with the following characteristics:

Initially, the territory was simulated including

both ecosystems, the paramo and high Andean forest,

from this simulation the following data were

obtained:

Table 1: Rain precipitation and river flow including Paramo

& H-A Forest.

Month Rainfall(Lt) Cabrera river flow(Lt/H)

1 375,59 50,73

2 1230,04 30,81

3 4706,25 97,84

4 8896,34 118,37

5 10943,42 125,75

6 10142,84 122,21

7 13238,05 137,11

8 3272,27 108,36

9 3028,24 107,16

10 2499,72 106,19

11 2281,27 105,76

12 1581,46 104,12

When Table 1 is analyzed, the river flow has an

average of about 100Lt in most months. With respect

to the amount of rainfall, the period of greatest

rainfall was between May and July, which is in

agreement with the rainy season in the paramos

(Díaz-Granados Ortiz et al., 2005).

The second simulation was done eliminating the

organic matter and vegetation of the soil in the

paramo, from this simulation the following results

were obtained:

Table 2: Rain precipitation and river flow including only H-

A Forest.

Month Rainfall(Lt) Cabrera river flow(Lt/H)

1 594,97 51,24

2 1594,52 50,69

3 4210,00 96,44

4 7522,20 198,82

5 10469,37 373,62

6 10847,70 366,72

7 14413,35 463,47

8 2396,23 95,53

9 3847,78 122,85

10 2446,71 58,64

11 3324,86 107,86

12 1192,23 66,34

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The data in Table 2 are similar to Table 1 for the

period of time in which the rainy season occurs,

however, the river flow data varies abruptly in the

Table 2.

Finally, the third simulation was done eliminating

the highAndeanForest object. The data obtained are

shown in the following table:

Table 3: Rain precipitation and river flow including only

Paramo ecosystem.

Month Rainfall(Lt) Cabrera river flow(Lt/H)

1 108,26 44,23

2 194,71 3,80

3 540,59 12,02

4 467,19 23,67

5 1443,40 39,31

6 1713,36 54,60

7 2059,47 72,19

8 450,80 14,22

9 259,73 9,50

10 395,28 9,78

11 200,28 7,70

12 102,78 4,88

The third simulation shows a huge drop in the

amount of rainfall recorded with respect to the

previous simulations.

The following graph corresponds to the

comparison of flow river, taking into account the data

of Tables 1,2 and 3:

Figure 6: Comparison of the river flow for the simulation 1,

2 and 3.

Analyzing the Figure 6, it is observed that the flow

of the river is balanced due to the interaction of both

ecosystems (the paramo and high Andean forest),

while in the simulation that includes only the high

Andean forest the river flow undergoes drastic

changes.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Observing the Figure 6, the importance of the

paramos as regulators of the water cycle is evidenced,

because in the rainy seasons they avoid that rivers

flow grows in excessive form, whereas in the dry

seasons they maintain the flow due to the water that

is released periodically by them.

On the other hand, the data in Table 3 reflect the

importance of high Andean forests because they

evaporate a large amount of water, which then falls as

rain over the paramos.

Reactive agents were necessary techniques in the

simulation of ecosystems because they allowed to

generate interaction of each component of the

ecosystem with the environment, those simple

interactions generated emergency, which is a

characteristic of complex systems

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