Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
But due to the complex nature of the participating processes, an anticipation of the
exact WHERETO will remain limited in the future.
For those who consider models as a crucial means to get the entire range of
relevant natural dynamics under anticipatory control, this is certainly a disappoint-
ing perspective. Natural self-organization will continue to create qualitatively new
relations, system behaviours and organismic properties. Society is not operating on
a passive substrate but is required to interact with its living and changing environ-
ment. For science this remains a real challenge: Ecological modelling will not run
out of demanding new questions that urgently require investigation, in order to
come up with new solutions in managing and developing natural resources in
a more sustainable way. Ecological modellers are not likely to run out of job
opportunities and will continue to contribute new options to enable reasonable
interaction pattern of social requirements and natural dynamics. Modelling will
require successive updating of its repertoire of methods and applications.
Often, the hallmark of natural science is assessed in terms of its ability to make
predictions, which, in turn, can be studied and confirmed by experiments. Eco-
logical models are often applied to cases where concluding experiments are not
possible, such as the effects of global climate change, but where appropriate
predictions are vital. In the light of the famous quote “predictions are difficult,
specifically about the future!”, how much confidence do we have in using ecologi-
cal models for predictions about real world systems?
As in (Fig.
24.1
), showing different perspectives of the mountain peak Zugspitze,
there are different possible views, attitudes and opinions regarding the role, reli-
ability and relevance of models in ecology.
Your own approach and practise in modelling will help to determine which
views and perspectives are to be favoured!
