Application of multi-agent systems and ambient intelligence approaches in water management

Various recently intensively investigated approaches, based on certain type of embedded intelligence exploitation, can be used also in the area of water management. A big class of them, based mainly on various types of multi-agent systems, are useful for incorporating complexity in ecosystem modelling in general. By incorporating a high degree of social and spatial heterogeneity multi-agent systems could also represent “nested hierarchies” and phenomena emerging across different scales. This is also an appropriate approach for capturing spatial phenomena in biophysical modelling. It enables the investigation of lower-level mechanisms that might lead to the development of higher-level structural and dynamical features in landscapes. The paper is oriented on summarization of recent results of existing as well as possible multiagent systems application in various sub-areas of water management. As multi-agent systems are very suitable also as a framework for ambient intelligence environment, some first ideas about exploitation of these approaches in water management and especially for river basin management will be presented as well. All the results are based on a series of ongoing mutually interconnected research projects.