ISATEM: An integration of socioeconomic and spatial models for mineral resources exploitation

Abstract

In the spatial-integrated socioeconomic model field, a multi-agent approach is appropriate for supporting applications modelled at a detailed territory scale, but it is less used than other approaches when supporting applications modelled at a larger scale. One possibility would be to have a more generic platform that is capable of supporting both levels. Moreover, at the spatial level, integration of dynamic spatial data and, in our case, spatial shape data should be reinforced so that, at any moment during a simulation, a user should be capable of exporting the temporal evolution of the spatial state as a (new) shape map, exploitable in a GIS tool. This paper aims to contribute to the improvement of these two aspects. We began the study with ADK, an existing agent platform, ending up with a new platform known as ISatEM. Our thematic interest is the field of mineral resources exploitation. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.