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Class <Driver>

Source: R/class-Driver.R
Driver-class.Rd

<Driver> is an S4 class representing spatially explicit environmental or anthropogenic features that interact with simulated agents. These drivers influence agents’ movement, behavioural states, energetic expenditure, and physiological condition within the IBM's area of calculation (AOC) over the course of a simulation.

Details

The class supports four main categories of drivers:

  • "habitat" - represents baseline environmental or anthropogenic conditions that define habitat characteristics (e.g. Sea surface temperature, salinity, bathymetry, distance from land).

  • "resource": captures the spatial distribution and availability of resources or proxies of ecological suitability (e.g. species density maps, energy intake surfaces).

  • "disturbance" - refers to influencers that deviate from the status-quo and evaluated for their effects on the agents' simulated histories (e.g. offshore windfarm footprints, oil rigs, shipping corridors).

  • "model" - refers to influencers specified for model operational purposes (e.g. AOC bounding box to confine simulated movements).

<Driver> supports two types of spatial data: vector-based simple features (<sf>) and gridded spatio-temporal data cubes (<stars>), providing flexibility for representing diverse inputs.

This class interacts with the Species to define how agents respond to drivers, such as modifying movement patterns or altering behavioural energy costs.

Slots

id

character string, a unique identifier for the driver.

descr

descr character string, providing a general description of the driver.

ann

character string, annotation for referencing the driver for reporting purposes.

type

character string, the driver type within the context of the IBM. Currently supports one of two values: "habitat" or "impact".

sf_obj

object of class <sf>, the simple feature representing the spatial geometry of the driver, if applicable.

sf_descr

character string, a brief description of data contained in sf_obj.

stars_obj

an object of class <stars>, a multidimensional array containing grid-type spatio-temporal attributes of the driver. Typical examples include time-series of raster-type density surfaces, distance layers to landscape features or to man-made structures/impacts.

stars_meta

a list object containing metadata about stars_obj required for modelling purposes

stars_descr

character string, a brief description of the data contained in stars_obj.

obj_active

character string, flagging whether sf_obj or stars_obj is to be used as the active driver data during simulation.

See also

Helper function Driver() to create <Driver> objects.