Surrogate-assisted distributed swarm optimisation for computationally expensive geoscientific models

Abstract: Evolutionary algorithms provide gradient-free optimisation which is beneficial for models that have difficulty in obtaining gradients; for instance, geoscientific landscape evolution models. However, such models are at times computationally expensive and even distributed swarm-based optimisation with parallel computing struggles. We can incorporate efficient strategies such as surrogate-assisted optimisation to address the challenges; however, implementing inter-process communication for surrogate-based model training is difficult. In this paper, we implement surrogate-based estimation of fitness evaluation in distributed swarm optimisation over a parallel computing architecture. We first test the framework on a set of benchmark optimisation problems and then apply it to a geoscientific model that features a landscape evolution model. Our results demonstrate very promising results for benchmark functions and the Badlands landscape evolution model. We obtain a reduction in computational time while retaining optimisation solution accuracy through the use of surrogates in a parallel computing environment. The major contribution of the paper is in the application of surrogate-based optimisation for geoscientific models which can in the future help in a better understanding of paleoclimate and geomorphology.