Modelling and simulation of ecological propagation processes: application to fire spread

An important class of ecological problems concerns propagation processes. In ecological modelling, these phenomena generally occur on large scales and are generally difficult to simulate efficiently because of the number of entities. Studies of this kind of phenomena lack genericity and reusability because they are often presented from the point of view of a single domain expert. Simulations made by domain experts seem to lack genericity for computer science specialists and simulations developed by computer science specialists seem not to grasp the terminology and problems of the domain experts. We propose here a general object-oriented framework for modelling and simulation of propagation processes. Object-oriented techniques help in developing generic and reusable models. From modelling to simulation, the Unified Modelling Language (UML) provides a common means of communication between computer science specialists and domain experts. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is used to improve object-oriented methodology. Simulation optimisations are defined for discrete time models of propagation. The approach is applied to the modelling and simulation of fire spread. Starting from wasteland fire problems, specification levels are used to gradually specify a fire spread simulator. Each level of the study is specified in UML and thus can be reused in another wasteland fire problem. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.