Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of world views. When looking back, it becomes apparent that the particular view of
each development phase had the tendency to give rise to interesting extrapolations.
The existing domains of the unknown get filled with structural analogies of what
was known. To this day, existing knowledge creates expectations of what is to
come, therefore, truly new knowledge is frequently surprising and controversial. In
Italy, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) established experimental investigations as a
targeted approach on scientific questions. In France, Ren
´
Descartes (1596-1650)
provided an elaborated philosophical underpinning of science in a mechanistic
world view. In Britain, Newton (1643-1727) formulated a synthesis that showed
a validity of the same mechanic laws being applicable on the microscopic scale of
the laboratory as well as on the macroscopic scale in astronomy. From 1751
onwards, the French encyclopaedists Denis Diderot (1713-1784), Jean Baptiste
D'Alembert (1717-1783), and others attempted to turn a synopsis of science into an
emancipatory power during the era of enlightenment. In the following time, science
diversified methodologically. Thermodynamics, chemistry, statistical mathematics,
and other fields rapidly progressed. In this concert, ecology arrived relatively late.
The German chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) had already established the
use of synthetic fertilizer. Organic chemistry was advancing when Ernst Haeckel
(1834-1919) coined the term “ecology” in 1868 in his topic “General Morphology
of Organisms” (1868). In 1935, when Tansley introduced the term “ecosystem”, the
very first modelling applications in ecology had just been developed. The starting of
ecological modelling occurred during the 1920s. It is quite obvious that we do not
report about a canonical field - there are lots of different opinions and views about
modelling in ecology. So we just take a glimpse of a transient process, which is not
only influenced by achievements arising in ecological science. Modelling techni-
ques and their ecological applications emerge in an intense exchange with scientific
advancement in other disciplines.
3.2 Ancestors of Ecological Modelling
Ecological modelling deals with the formalization of dynamic and complex inter-
action networks, how organisms relate with each other and with their environment.
Modelling attempts to uncover implications of understandable relations that are not
obvious at first glance when looking at the organisms and the locations where they
occur. With model development we hope to identify concealed implications. We
attempt to approximate and expand the margins, and the boundaries of what is
intelligible. The new insight that a good model provides, goes beyond what can be
concluded with direct observation, evaluation and interpretation.
Though the term ecology is relatively young, the assessment of natural processes
is much older. We can find the precursors of ecological modelling in natural history
and also in other disciplines.
