SimKat: a virtual laboratory to explore the impact of climate change scenarios on the Western Australian wheat-belt

The northernmost part of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (MBR) runs along the eastern Yucatan

peninsula (Mexico). Over two decades, sprawling coastal tourism development and over-exploitation of

marine resources have considerably reduced fringing reef’s ecological functions. SimReef is an interactive

model designed to better understand the interactions between regional and local drivers strongly influencing

the health of coral reefs. SimReef’s development follows a collective design approach and an inductive

process whereby dynamics are represented by data-driven relationships. Experts and stakeholders participate

to the designing phase in order to help calibrating the model and to support a consensual validation of the

results.