THE MODELING APPROACH IN ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT

management The process of model building in the environmental sciences and when dealing with ecosystems is discussed. Two types of modeling approaches need to be distinguished: An algorithmic one, which has been used traditionally in physics, meteorology, and other branches where biological degrees of freedom are either absent or neglectable; and an interactive one, which is a new framework in computer science and seems to be most suitable in cases where organisms (including humans) as agents in ecosystems are to be taken into account. The first modeling approach is exemplified by state models in dynamic systems theory and expresses the correspondence imposed by laws of nature betwee