01 Feb 2017
Modelling // Nexus Tools Platform: Web-based comparison of modelling tools for analysis of water-soil-waste nexus
By T. Mannschatz, T. Wolf and S. Hülsmann. Exploring the inter-linkages of water, soil and waste resources and advancing an integrated management (or Nexus-) approach requires integrated modelling tools. Numerous models are available dealing with specific environmental processes, covering certain spatial and temporal scales and applying different mathematical process-describing relationships. However, finding and selecting the most appropriate (suite of) model(s) for a particular purpose is challenging, since current inventories do not allow any interactive filtering or model comparison.
Therefore, we developed an interactive web-based platform, called Nexus Tools Platform (NTP), for inter-model comparison of existing modelling tools, which provides detailed information and allows for advanced filtering based on real-time visualizations. The alpha version of NTP (September 2015) comprises 73 models and covers a wide range of model types and environmental processes. We present selected NTP application examples for how to find and select the most appropriate modelling tools for a specific application using meta-analysis.
Highlights
- Analysis of the water-soil-waste nexus requires appropriate modelling tools.
- A web-based platform for interactive comparison of nexus modelling tools was set up.
- The need for this platform, its development and implementation is explained.
- Application examples demonstrate its functionality for selecting appropriate models.
- An index to evaluate the popularity of modelling tools was developed.