Design of a Domain Specific Language for modelling processes in landscapes

Preface to the selected papers on spatially explicit landscape modelling: Current practices and challenges

“…An integrative approach could be considered by coupling with other environmental models simulating atmospheric, underground and/or biological components of the landscape. Working in four dimensions and/or using domainspecific languages may be necessary in ecology (Degenne et al, 2009). These are promising strategies since they favour integrating ecological phenomena and provide a holistic view of ecosystems too.…”

“…Their development and calculation time are costly, but they are now increasingly being implemented in landscape studies (With and King, 1997;Gaucherel et al, 2006a (Fall and Fall, 2001;Degenne et al, 2009) and that of modelling platform. A domain-specific language uses a kernel of data, knowledge and methods surrounded by models specific to certain applications (less costly to design).…”

“…Gomez-Gutierrez et al these papers illustrate that models could be efficient tools to evaluate how human activities/landscape configuration influence fluxes of matters and organisms. The last paper (Degenne et al, 2009) demonstrates that spatial landscape modelling, whatever the environmental issue, needs to refer to theoretical research to improve and facilitate development of such models. Finally, the papers in this special issue present an overview of the insights available to landscape ecologists, landscape modellers and all scientists working on modelling landscape dynamics.…”

Dynamic Landscape Modelling: The Quest for a Unifying Theory

“…LM mentioned in this paper are merely a sample selected to highlight some of the most important features of landscape modelling to explore some of the key challenges facing those who build and use LM. To be exhaustive, this section should also address considerations about the time management of models (Degenne et al, 2009), about the 2D-3D representation of space in LMs , and many others. The time and spatial dimension challenges are urgent to improve our understanding of external needs such as biogeochemical processes, for example.…”

“…A promising way of combining these various landscape processes certainly pertains to the use of model platforms in order to efficiently build models dedicated to landscape topics (de Coligny, 2006;Dufour-Kowalski et al, 2011;Gaucherel et al, 2006b) (Figure 2a). Another promising opportunity is that of Domain-Specific Language (DSL) (Degenne et al, 2009;Fall and Fall, 2001). DSL are languages adapted to a specific target, such as modelling a broad class of landscapes, and sharing various methods and knowledge for this goal.…”