Short communication

Urban hydrology in a computer game?

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. Hellweger / Environmental Modelling & Software 22 (2007) 1679e1684
SimCity is one of its main advantages, especially in an educa-
tional setting, where the importance of game-like interfaces in
motivating students is recognized (e.g. Phelps et al., 2003).
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted as part of the OUR Charles
(Opportunities for Undergraduate Research on the Charles
River) research program sponsored by the Northeastern Uni-
versity Provost. Ehsan Kianirad, David Bedoya, Grace Mitch-
ell and one anonymous reviewer provided useful comments on
the manuscript.
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