We report on the development of a large-scale simulation framework for environmental modelling. The framework allows to couple various simulation models from natural and social science disciplines to perform integrative simulations. It has been constructed following a development methodology based on the identification of different functional views, which are concerned with data exchange, simulation space and coordination of distributed simulation models with respect to (logical) simulation time. On all levels of the development we have rigorously applied modelling and specification techniques including the last step, in which the different views are integrated into a component model of the full framework. The requirements for the correct coordination of simulation models have been formally specified in terms of the process algebra FSP and the design model has been model checked against the coordination requirements. Within the GLOWA-Danube project the framework has been successfully instantiated to construct the distributed simulation system Danubia which integrates up to 15 simulation models from various disciplines to model the consequences of global climate change for the water household on regional scales.
['Rolf Hennicker', 'Matthias Ludwig']
View-based development of a simulation framework for multi-disciplinary environmental modelling