Section: Software and Platforms

Sacadeau : qualitative modeling and decision-aid to preserve the water quality from pollutants as herbicides

SACADEAU is an environmental decision software (cf. 4.3 ) that implements the Sacadeau transfer model.The Sacadeau simulation model couples two qualitative models, a transfer model describing the pesticide transfer through the catchment and a management model describing the farmer decisions. Giving as inputs a climate file, a topological description of a catchment, and a cadastral repartition of the plots, the Sacadeau model simulates the application of herbicides by the farmers on the maize plots, and the transfer of these pollutants through the catchment until the river. The two main simulated processes are the runoff and the leaching. The output of the model simulation is the quantity of herbicides arriving daily to the stream and its concentration at the outlets. The originality of the model is the representation of water and pesticide runoffs with tree structures where leaves and roots are respectively up-streams and down-streams of the catchment.

The software allows the user to see the relationships between these tree structures and the rules learnt from simulations (cf. 3.2.1 ). A more elaborated version allows to launch simulations and to learn rules on-line. This year, we have developed this new version by enabling access to two recommendation action algorithms.The user can choose different parameters (set of classification rules from which actions will be built, parameters concerning action feasibility, etc) before asking for action recommending process, and then easily visualize the characteristics of situations to improve (polluted ones) compared with the different recommended actions. The software is mainly in Java.

The following website is devoted to the presentation of the SACADEAU : http://www.irisa.fr/dream/SACADEAU/ . See also [10] for a presentation.