This paper reviews the hydrology in the simulation game SimCity 4. The components of the hydrologic cycle relate mainly to drinking water supply, treatment and distribution. The general game architecture is capable of a more realistic representation.
This paper reviews the hydrology in the simulation game SimCity 4. The components of the hydrologic cycle relate mainly to drinking water supply, treatment and distribution. The general game architecture is capable of a more realistic representation.
This paper reviews the hydrology in the simulation game SimCity 4. The components of the hydrologic cycle relate mainly to drinking water supply, treatment and distribution. The general game architecture is capable of a more realistic representation.
Benny R. DArtista 1 , Ferdi L. Hellweger * Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, 400 Snell Engineering Center, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA Received 3 January 2006; received in revised form 9 August 2006; accepted 5 September 2006 Available online 21 March 2007 Abstract An increased interest in coupled natural and human systems motivates the simulation of dynamic interactions between humans and their envi- ronment. Simulation games often include this capability suggesting their use as research and/or educational tools, but this requires a somewhat realistic representation of environmental processes. This paper reviews the hydrology in the simulation game SimCity 4. The components of the hydrologic cycle included in the game relate mainly to drinking water supply, treatment and distribution. Groundwater, the sole source of drinking water, is present in unlimited quantity, but becomes polluted as a result of agricultural and industrial land uses. Water treatment plants are included, but in a somewhat unrealistic manner, in that they rapidly clean up aquifers in situ. The drinking water distribution infrastructure consists of water towers, pumps and pipes, but again, they are included in a somewhat unrealistic manner. Water towers and pumps both extract groundwater and are differentiated solely by their capacity, power usage and cost (rather than function). Besides for entertainment, the game should be valuable for educational purposes in lower level undergraduate courses to illustrate that/how water supply affects a city and vice versa. The general game architecture is capable of a more realistic representation and inclusion of additional components of the urban hydrologic cycle, which are discussed. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Urban hydrology; Urban hydrologic cycle; SimCity Software availability Name of software: SimCity 4 Developer: Will Wright, Maxis Contact address: Electronic Arts (EA) Games, http://simcity. ea.com/ Year rst available: 1989 Hardware required: 500 MHz Intel
Pentium
or AMD
Athlon processor, 128 MB RAM (2000, 98),
256 MB RAM (XP, Me), 8 CD-ROM/DVD-ROM, 1.6 GB hard disk space, 32 MB Direct3D capable video card with DirectX 7.0 compatible driver, DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card, keyboard, mouse Software required: Windows
XP, Me, 2000, 98
Program language: N/A Program footprint: N/A Availability and cost: $29.95 1. Introduction Simulation games are becoming increasingly realistic, especially in their representation of interactions between hu- mans and the environment. SimCity (the subject of this review), for example, incorporates dynamic interactions be- tween people in a city, the mayor (the player) and the nat- ural and built environment. Peoples actions (e.g. build houses, open businesses) are based on, and in turn affect, the environment (e.g. land value, pollution), and those com- ponents evolve dynamically in constant interaction with each other. In addition to making games more fun, a realistic simulation of the interactions between humans and their en- vironment is of interest from a research perspective. The dy- namics of coupled natural and human (CNH) systems is * Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 617 373 3992; fax: 1 617 373 4419. E-mail address: ferdi@coe.neu.edu (F.L. Hellweger). 1 Present address: HNTB Corporation, Inc., Boston, MA, USA. 1364-8152/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2006.09.004 Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 1679e1684 www.elsevier.com/locate/envsoft evolving as a major inter-disciplinary research theme at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) (e.g. Prman et al., 2003), and operational urban models like UrbanSim (Wad- dell and Borning, 2004), SWARM (e.g. Ligtenberg et al., 2001) and SLEUTH (e.g. Arthur-Hartranft et al., 2003) are generally moving in that direction. The UrbanSim model, which has traditionally focused on land use and transportation, is being extended by Alberti and Waddell (2000) to include dynamic interaction between humans and the environment. Human agents (e.g. households, busi- nesses) consume water and emit nutrients, which affects the environment as quantied using environmental quality indices, which in turn inuence choices by humans. Arthur-Hartranft et al. (2003) linked the urban growth SLEUTH model with a microclimate and hydrologic model. In that model, land-use changes spatially and temporally, which affects the runoff coefcients of watersheds and changes the amount of runoff. The models above, generally consider humans as components of the environment that act independently in response to environmental factors like land value, pollution, etc. Humans can also be integrated into models in the form of stakeholders in a policy-sense, as was done by Hermans et al. (2003). Their model of a New York City watershed includes a number of actors (e.g. New York City, New York State), each with different interests and options (e.g. build ltration plant, do nothing). The various approaches of integrating humans into environ- mental models are not mutually exclusive. The model of Monticino et al. (2007), for example, has homeowner and government agents, combined with a number of environ- mental sub-models (e.g. land use, hydrology). Different types of homeowners are included (e.g. environmentalist, apathetic), and they affect their environment as quantied using rainfall runoff and nutrient concentration metrics, which feed back to the human system. Municipal govern- ment agents can approve or reject proposed developments. In addition to research, the simulation of interactions be- tween humans and their environment is of interest from an educational perspective. As a result, simulation games like SimCity, have found applications in the geography curriculum (e.g. Adams, 1998) and modied versions of SimCity are being developed as part of novel engineering curricula (Garvin et al., 2002). Simulation games have potential as research and educational tools, but a requirement for either of these pur- poses is a somewhat realistic representation of environmental processes, like air pollution and hydrology. This paper focuses on the hydrology in SimCity. What parts of the hydrologic cycle are included? Are water quantity and/or quality issues addressed? Are processes represented accurately? What is the potential use of SimCity as a research or educational tool? First, an overview of the game is provided. Then, the major components of the urban hydrologic cycle are discussed. Besides the hydrology reviewed here, SimCity includes other environmental aspects, like air pollution, sanitation, toxic waste spills, etc., which are not part of this re- view. A certain amount of mystery and unpredictability is part of the SimCity gaming experience, and therefore the underly- ing algorithms, including those for hydrology, are not pub- lished. This aspect makes the review signicantly more challenging than that of a typical hydrologic model. The as- sessment of the hydrology is therefore based on the black box behavior of the game, which was investigated using trial simulations. 2. Overview of SimCity SimCity is a simulation game where the player assumes the roles of god and (subsequently) mayor of a city. The game starts with the player selecting an area on which to construct a city. In god mode, the player can modify the land via a number of terrain functions (e.g. make valleys, apply ero- sion). Then the player switches into mayor mode, which is the stage of the game that is functionally most similar to urban environmental models. In mayor mode, the player assigns land zoning (e.g. low-density residential, medium- density commercial), builds roads and other civil infrastruc- ture (e.g. power, police) and controls the budget of various departments. Once basic necessities are provided, people will move into the city. The people function dynamically in response to their environment (which is partly controlled by the mayor) and they also affect their environment. To illus- trate, consider for example the small city in Fig. 1. The top panel shows the zoning assigned by the mayor. The middle panel shows the resulting city after 10 years if power, re ghting, health care and schools are provided. The bottom panel shows the resulting city for the same case with the addi- tion of drinking water infrastructure. The example illustrates the importance of drinking water for the growth of a city. The player is provided with feedback on the state of the city (e.g. budget, water pollution) in a number of ways. An advisor panel, consisting of city ofcials with various areas of exper- tise (e.g. transportation, power), provides alerts and sugges- tions. Other forms of feedback include time series graphs (e.g. Fig. 2), spatial views and opinion polls. SimCity 4 has drawn praise from numerous video gaming critics, including receiving the Gaming Excellence Editors Choice Award and being selected by IGN Entertainment as one of the Top 100 games of all time. These and other re- views are available from EA Games (EA Games, 2005). The rst version of SimCity, SimCity Classic was created by Will Wright in 1985. Wright and Jeff Braun formed Maxis, which published the rst version of the SimCity series in 1989. SimCity CLASSIC was subsequently followed by SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000. The latest edition of the SimCity series is SimCity 4. Electronic Arts (EA) now distrib- utes the SimCity games under the EA Games label. EA Games has also produced numerous spin offs to the SimCity series including Sims 2 and The Urbz: Sims in the City. Several In- ternet resource sites exist (e.g. SimCity.com), providing a fo- rum for player interaction as well as downloading of customized components. Some of those components relate to hydrology, but are not included in this review. 1680 B.R. DArtista, F.L. Hellweger / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 1679e1684 3. Hydrology in SimCity 3.1. Overview A summary of the major stores and uxes of the urban hy- drologic cycle, and if and how (quantity, quality) they are in- cluded in SimCity is presented in Table 1. The components that are included, surface water, groundwater, drinking water treatment and distribution, are described in more detail below. 3.2. Surface water Although surface water bodies (i.e. rivers, lakes, estuaries) are included in SimCity there are no hydrologic issues (e.g. ooding, eutrophication) associated with them. However, ooding was included in the SimCity Classic as a random event that occurs near water bodies. Surface water bodies are important, because their area is not available for develop- ment, and they provide water transportation (passenger ferries and seaports) and recreation (marinas and beaches). 3.3. Groundwater Groundwater constitutes the sole source of drinking water in SimCity. Although there is always sufcient quantity, the quality deteriorates as a result of agricultural, industrial and sanitation (i.e. landll) activities. The aquifer beneath those land uses becomes polluted and the pollution spreads horizon- tally in a diffusion-like manner. Fig. 3a illustrates groundwater pollution due to (primarily) a power plant. The response time of the groundwater pollution is very fast, generally less than one month. That means, if the power plant in Fig. 3a were to be removed, the pollution would return to levels that existed before it was built within one month. This is unrealistic, be- cause groundwater aquifers have much longer residence times for water (decades and longer) and pollutants can persist much longer due to sorption to solids. Pollution is quantied spa- tially using an index and on a citywide basis as the amount of water supply affected. No specic pollutants (e.g. BTEX) are identied. Besides the land use zoning and water treatment Fig. 1. The effect of drinking water infrastructure. (a) Land zoning (RL, residential, low density; RM, residential, medium density; CL, commercial, low density, CM, commercial, medium density; IM, industrial, medium density), (b) 1900-capita city after 10 years without drinking water infrastruc- ture, and (c) 2900-capita city after 10 years with drinking water infrastructure. Fig. 2. A water time series graph for the city shown in Fig. 1c. The units are m 3 /month. Table 1 Components of the hydrologic cycle and their inclusion in SimCity Component Included Quantity Quality Stores Atmospheric water e e e Surface water O e e Groundwater O e O Fluxes Precipitation e e e Inltration e e e Evaporation and transpiration e e e Runoff and stream ow e e e Drinking water treatment and distribution O O O Stormwater collection (and detention and treatment) e e e Wastewater collection and treatment e e e 1681 B.R. DArtista, F.L. Hellweger / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 1679e1684 (discussed in the next section), there are no direct controls on groundwater pollution, such as education or restricting farmers with respect to pesticide application. Water pollution will de- crease the output of water supply facilities or shut them down completely (discussed in more detail later). 3.4. Water treatment SimCity includes water treatment plants as an option to mitigate groundwater pollution, although in a somewhat unre- alistic manner. Whereas in reality the treatment plant would take polluted water, treat it and then pass it on to the distribu- tion system, in SimCity installing a water treatment plant will reduce pollution in the source aquifer. As such, the water treat- ment plant is an independent component that does not connect with the water infrastructure. Fig. 3b illustrates the effect of installing a water treatment plant on groundwater pollution. Due to the fast response time (see previous section) the clean up is quick, less than one month for the case illustrated in Fig. 3. 3.5. Drinking water distribution An adequate supply of drinking water is a major necessity in SimCity. Residents in low-density residential areas are self- sufcient (i.e. groundwater wells). For medium and high den- sity residential and all commercial and industrial zoned areas, a public water supply must be provided. Drinking water can be extracted from the groundwater by three types of primary fa- cilities, as summarized in Table 2. Each facility can supply water within a radius of inuence (e.g. six tiles or cells, a tile is the smallest area that can be occupied by one house or small structure) as illustrated in Fig. 4a. There is no functional connection between water tower and pump (i.e. aquifer / pump /tower). To increase the distribution beyond the radius of the primary facility, a water main or pipeline network can be constructed. No connections for house services are required; the player only needs to provide the water main in the vicinity of the building. The water mains provide service to within a radius of inuence (e.g. six tiles). There are a number of problems that can affect the water supply infrastructure. First, water pipes deteriorate if the water department budget is not adequate. Pipe burst will cause water sprouts that can destroy surrounding building. To prevent pipe breaks along the same line of the pipe burst, the player should replace the water line or support an adequate budget for the water department to perform maintenance. Second, pump stations may not be functioning for a number of reasons, including a lack of power or pollution. If the groundwater aquifer becomes polluted, the water supply is reduced, reducing the area covered by the distribution system, or shut down completely. Water demand is quantied citywide (see Fig. 2). Note that the per capita demand for the case in Fig. 2 is about 25 L capita 1 day 1 , which is reasonable considering only a small portion of the city is supplied by the water supply (see Fig. 4b; typical: 250, range: 150e300 L capita 1 day 1 , domestic, Linsley et al., 1992). 4. Summary and outlook The main hydrologic capabilities in SimCity are related to water supply, treatment and distribution. However, the compo- nents are included in a somewhat unrealistic manner. Ground- water pollution, for example has a very short response time. Also, the functional relation of the various components is un- realistic, which is obvious when compared to a more realistic arrangement in Fig. 5. The present version of SimCity should be useful (besides entertainment) as an educational tool in the elds of geogra- phy, planning and engineering. The game offers a means to bridge the gap between technical software and games, and could be used to introduce students to the complexity of plan- ning, constructing and maintaining a city. With respect to ur- ban hydrology and engineering, the game should be most Fig. 3. Groundwater pollution. (a) Pollution due to (primarily) a power plant, and (b) reduction in pollution by a water treatment plant. Table 2 Summary of water infrastructure components Type Construction cost (x a ) Operating cost (x/month) Production (m 3 /month) Primary facilities b Water tower 150 50 2400 Water pump 1400 350 20,000 Large water pump 15,400 3150 200,000 Other components Water treatment plant 15,000 350 2400 Pipes 9 0.1 N/A a The currency used in SimCity is the Simoleon (x). b Primary facilities are extracting water from groundwater aquifers. 1682 B.R. DArtista, F.L. Hellweger / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 1679e1684 useful in lower level undergraduate courses in (e.g. Introduc- tion to Civil & Environmental Engineering) to illustrate the importance of hydrology in a city in general. A more realistic representation of the hydrology would be needed for the game to be useful in higher level undergraduate (e.g. Environmental Engineering I ) or graduate (e.g. Hydrology) engineering courses. Adams (1998) provides some guidance on incorporat- ing SimCity into a class. It would be useful to modify SimCity to include a more re- alistic representation of urban hydrology. Based on the current capabilities of the game, some improvements should be possi- ble without major changes to the games architecture. SimCity now includes individual components of the hydrologic cycle that relate to each other via functional relationships (i.e. Fig. 5). It should be possible to redene those relationships in a more realistic manner within the present program archi- tecture. The water treatment plant could clean water in the dis- tribution system, rather than the aquifer, which could happen whenever the plant is constructed next to a pump or tower. The present simulation of drinking water distribution from wa- ter treatment plants to households illustrates that the program architecture is applicable to horizontal water uxes via pipes. The same approach can be used for transporting sanitary or in- dustrial wastewater from households or industries to wastewa- ter treatment plants or receiving water bodies. The wastewater system could tie in with the drinking water system, which would provide a link between water use and wastewater gen- eration. Excessive pollutant discharges could impair receiving water resources, restricting their use for recreation or drinking water supply. Existing urban water models (e.g. Mitchell and Diaper, 2006) constitute a good starting point for making these improvements to SimCity. Other improvements may be more difcult to implement in the current program architecture. Stormwater runoff, for example, is a precipitation-driven pro- cess and simulating it requires variable weather, whereas the weather in SimCity is constant. As the game becomes more realistic, it may be more difcult to understand and limit its utility as an entertainment and edu- cation tool. One major challenge will be incorporating more hy- drology, but do it in a way that the broad audience of gamers can comprehend it. Maybe the most practical approach is to make a specialized version of the model (i.e. SimCity e Water) or incorporate levels or modes. The gaming feel of Fig. 4. Water distribution. (a) Water tower and radius of inuence (water view: blue, are supplied with drinking water; red, area not supplied with drinking water; green, drinking water infrastructure), (b) water tower and pipeline, and (c) underground view illustrating installation of pipes. This is the same case as shown in Fig. 1c. Aquifer Pump Treatment Storage Distribution Aquifer Pump Treatment Storage Distribution (a) (b) Fig. 5. Interactions of drinking water components. (a) Realistic, and (b) SimCity. 1683 B.R. DArtista, F.L. 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