Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
interdependencies that occur in the form of emergent phenomena makes ecological
modelling the major approach for reconstructing ecological entities in terms of struc-
tural and functional relations.
The understanding of emergent properties is basically linked with across-scale
modelling and the combination of model descriptions on different organizational
levels. Within the modelling workflow, the natural processes are abstracted and
reconstructed in computable program code, which allows for arbitrary numbers of
repetitions under varying boundary and initial conditions. Aside from the pure
coding process, which can in principle be automated using our current under-
standing of artificial intelligence, we believe that the moment of inspiration,
which enables the researcher to formulate the ecological hypotheses, will remain
the genuine and authentic domain of the modeller. The better science becomes in
simulating the dynamics of complex ecological phenomena across scales and levels
as theoretically formulated processes, the more relevant the next task will become.
This is to expand our understanding of how processes and succession of natural
systems respond and interact with human interferences, and vice versa: how eco-
system dynamics set boundary conditions and thus influence self-structuring pro-
cesses of social activities and systems. However, this is by no means a trivial task.
24.5 Coupling Models of Natural and Human Systems
It is notoriously difficult to model the interaction of human subjects with each
other. If our current understanding were better here, we would not stumble blindly
into economic surprises and crises. The ongoing current crisis teaches how far
away we are from such a crucial system understanding. Nevertheless, the feedback
between social processes and ecological dynamics is one of the most demanding
current fields of interdisciplinary research and development (see Costanza 1991).
The relation of natural and social dynamics is a new interdisciplinary approach,
called social-ecological research, which tries to connect ecological transformation
of the society with social justice and economic demands (e.g. PT DLR 2008).
Due to the increase of the economic and ecological pressures on natural and
human systems, the question arises whether the modelling of “symbiotic” entities,
like agro-ecological systems and the associated social structures (of the farmers
as a starting point) would not gain from being depicted together? Imagine, as an
example, the situation of the introduction of genetically modified oilseed rape in an
agronomic system of Southern Europe, where all the hybridization partners have
their centres of origin and, hence, might give rise to a new variety of, e.g. herbicide
resistant weeds. In this context, also other new evolutionary implications and self-
organized dispersal events may be imagined. Would not the outcome of such a
field trial with, for instance, genetically-modified oilseed rape have impacts on the
societal structure of the participating farmers (Knispel et al. 2008; Beckie et al.
2003)? Surely this would be the case, and hence, models that work on these
phenomena should reasonably be coupled (see Reuter et al. 2010).
