Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
confronted with the side effects of non-sustainable practises. Like any other rele-
vant scientific tool, modelling has to be evaluated and to be adapted to new
conditions.
Regarding the development of the ATLSS program, we can state, that since the
Restudy plan, the whole framework has continued to develop in several ways. First,
the models have been applied to other scenario evaluations in South Florida, such as
the Modified Water Delivery Program. Second, the number of models within
ATLSS is expanding to cover crayfish and apple snails, with other models in the
planning phase. Of particular importance will be a model of vegetative succession
that will forecast changes in numerous vegetation types under changing hydrology
and nutrient inputs. Third, the geographic range of ATLSS is expanding to cover
the mangrove estuary areas of South Florida. Mangrove estuary vegetation, fish and
other fauna are being modelled. Fourth, a GIS-based ATLSS Visualizer has been
developed to allow agencies to view and analyse all ATLSS output data. Fifth,
sufficient data now exist for improved calibration and validation techniques to be
applied to the ATLSS models, which is in progress now, along with uncertainty
analysis.
What are the future demands that the discipline of ecological modelling has to
face when dealing with Everglades issues and what, from the methodological point
of view, is needed to overcome these? For the Everglades, in the times of the
“Grand Challenges” (NRC 2001), the need for positive actions is becoming more
urgent. Without doubt, a landscape that is totally surrounded by coastal margins is
most at risk from “Global Change” in the form of sea level rise. Here, a projected
rise of the sea level of 2-8 ft by 2100 (Overpeck and Cole 2006; Overpeck and
Weiss 2009) would in the least, strongly affect, and at worst, devastate most of the
positive efforts that have been accomplished for restoration in the Everglades to
date. Consequently, more positive actions must be taken. Following Gardner et al.
(2008) these actions should include:
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Identifying endangered landscapes/habitats and broadly communicating the
essential reasons for preserving these critical resources
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Linking numerous and specific case studies across countries, biomes and
landscapes to develop robust criteria for sustainability and adaptive management
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Increasing the awareness within financial sectors of the fundamental relation-
ships between economics and landscape management
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Working out new formal techniques to visualize the rates and the consequences
of landscape change
Realizing these actions will depend strongly on the development of adequate
theoretical tools and modelling tools to tackle the issues that stand before us. Along
these lines, we expect developments in which originally separated areas of model-
ling grow together. An example for such a development can already be seen with
the integration of GIS-like systems into broader modelling frameworks (see
Chap. 22). Another important keyword for future ecological modelling is model
“coupling”, which can be performed in two ways: (1) the output of one model is
used as input of a hierarchically higher located model. So far, there have been
