Introduction - Environmental Modeling - page 4

the specialized environmental modeler, although some of the presented mathemat-
ical tools could be applied to environmental problems. Christakos et al. ( 2002 )
focus on the connection of time dependent simulation and GIS using MATLAB .

McCuen ( 2002 ) treats statistical methods (which do not appear here) for modeling
hydrologic change. Cantrell and Cosner ( 2003 ) examine spatial ecology via reac-
tion-diffusion models, without reference to any specific software package. Lynch
( 2005 ) addresses scientists and engineers in his general introduction to numerical
methods without preference for any specific software and with few references to
applied environmental modeling. In his introduction to MATLAB ® Kiusalaas
( 2005 ) addresses engineers in general. The topic of Zimmerman ( 2004 ) is chemical
process simulation using FEMLAB 2 code. Hornberger and Wiberg ( 2005 ) have the
hydrologist's perspective on numerical methods. Trauth ( 2010 ) focuses on image-
and data-processing, as well as statistical methods for geoscientists. Finlayson
( 2006 ) deals with the chemical aspects and gives an introduction to MATLAB

®

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as one of several modeling tools. All these topics 3 differ concerning scope and
methods; and none of them has the same constellation of scope and methods, as it is
presented in this topic.
The topic is divided into 20 chapters which differ concerning scope and com-
plexity. The first ten chapters form a primer on fundamental concepts and basic
environmental modeling. All of the model examples presented are 0- or 1-dimensional.
In the further ten chapters more complex models, as for example spatial 2D, are
outlined with an explanation of the underlying methods. Concepts of flow modeling
are introduced.
In this topic the focus on basic ' core ' MATLAB

4 is intended. There is the hope
to address a wider audience, as not all readers may have access to the complete palette
of MATLAB

®

toolboxes. On the other hand, there are lots of powerful commands
in core MATLAB

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and novice users might be confused being confronted with
more specialized tools. It turns out that this is not a severe restriction, as most basic
tasks, which are of interest to the environmental modeler, can be performed using
core MATLAB

®

. For advanced higher dimensional and coupled problems the
MATLAB ® partial differential equation toolbox has to be used, or COMSOL
Multiphysics alternatively. COMSOL has developed a multi-physics software envi-
ronment, which can be applied with MATLAB

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in the background.
Although other mathematical codes have developed a similar extension from
a special purpose module to a toolbox for mathematical calculations in general,
matrix manipulation is the backbone and stronghold of the MATLAB

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package

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2

Now COMSOL; see: http://www.comsol.com/ .
3 There are numerous other topics on MATLAB

, which could not all be checked by the author.
The reader can get a list on the MathWorks Website http://www.mathworks.com/support/books .
4 For this topic we mainly used the most up-to-date version of MATLAB

®

. The latest version was
release R2011b. However, there are some references back to version 7 that was used in the first
edition of the topic. Most of the commands described in the topic should work equally independent
of the MATLAB

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version.

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