FIRMA

The aim of the project, funded by the European Commission in FP V, was to improve water resource planning through the use of multi-agent models that integrated physical, hydrological, cognitive, social and economic aspects of water resource management. This task was specified through specific objectives:

• Promote co-operation between water resource decision makers and experts in water resource management and in agent-based social simulation.
• Analyze hydro-social issues of waste water treatment, water scarcity and integrated catchment planning in selected regions, and assemble the data required to develop agent-based models for these applications.
• Carry out participatory integrated assessments in five selected regions. Compare the management of water and develop methodology for the agent-based simulation of water resource issues in Europe based on experiences.

Our main results were:

• Regional application reports about water resource policy issues in each case study area.
• Regional models, software, role-playing games and documentation.
• Synthesis of modeling methods: guidelines for participatory agent-based integrated modeling.