GRASS and modeling landscape processes using duality.pdf

Proceedings of the Open source GIS - GRASS users conference 2002 - Trento, Italy, 11-13 September 2002 GRASS and modeling landscape processes using duality between particles and fields Jaroslav Hofierka*,**, Helena Mitasova*, Lubos Mitas*** * Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA, hmitaso@. ** Department of Geography and Geoecology, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Science, University of Pre?ov, 17. novembra 1, 081 16 Pre?ov, Slovak Republic, e-mail hofierka@geomodel.sk ***Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA. 1 Introduction Emergence of new mapping and automated monitoring technologies created new opportunities to predict consequences of anthropogenic activities and use such predictions to find sustainable solutions for development. Modeling of landscape processes plays an important role in this effort by allowing us to simulate the impact of proposed changes before irreversible damage is done and by providing tools to explore a wide range of alternatives. Traditional, spatially averaged models, such as BASIN and to some extent SWAT [3], [11], have limited capabilities to identify locations of problems (e.g. pollution sources) and the pattern of their propagation through landscapes. Also the possibilities to explore various alternatives of land use pattern and to find optimal organization of landscape are restricted. Spatially distributed models based on continuous fields provide such insight, however, they are much more complicated in terms of their implementation and data requirements. As the availability of high resolution data improves and the GIS capabilities are enhanced, such models are becoming more feasible for practical applications. Coupling with GIS makes running the distributed models more efficient, especially when larger, complex areas are involved and a number of alternatives needs to be evaluated. Direct access to GIS database is useful for adjusting