Cellular automata modeling of environmental systems

Flow and transport processes in unsaturated soil are analyzed through a simulation environment based on cellular automata (CA). The modeling proposed in this chapter represents an extension of the original computational paradigm of cellular automata, because it uses a macroscopic CA approach where local laws with a clear physical meaning govern interactions among automata. This CA structure, aimed at simulating a large-scale system, is based on functionalities capable of increasing its computational capacity, both in terms of working environment and taken from benchmarks in literature, showing a good agreement even in the cases where non-linearity is very marked. Furthermore, some analyses have been carried out considering quantization techniques aimed at transforming the CA model into an asynchronous structure. The use of these techniques in a three-dimensional benchmark allowed a considerable reduction in the number of local interactions among adjacent automata without changing the efficiency of the model, especially when simulations are characterized by scarce mass exchanges.