Simulation of Ecological and Environmental Models PDF Download

Author: Miguel F. Acevedo
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466553898
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
Given the importance of interdisciplinary work in sustainability, Simulation of Ecological and Environmental Models introduces the theory and practice of modeling and simulation as applied in a variety of disciplines that deal with earth systems, the environment, ecology, and human-nature interactions. Based on the author's many years of teaching g

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309110009
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Many regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are based on the results of computer models. Models help EPA explain environmental phenomena in settings where direct observations are limited or unavailable, and anticipate the effects of agency policies on the environment, human health and the economy. Given the critical role played by models, the EPA asked the National Research Council to assess scientific issues related to the agency's selection and use of models in its decisions. The book recommends a series of guidelines and principles for improving agency models and decision-making processes. The centerpiece of the book's recommended vision is a life-cycle approach to model evaluation which includes peer review, corroboration of results, and other activities. This will enhance the agency's ability to respond to requirements from a 2001 law on information quality and improve policy development and implementation.

Author: Donald Mackay
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1420032542
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Completely revised and updated, Multimedia Environmental Models: The Fugacity Approach, Second Edition continues to provide simple techniques for calculating how chemicals behave in the environment, where they accumulate, how long they persist, and how this leads to human exposure. The book develops, describes, and illustrates the framework and pro

Author: Hans von Storch
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9783642640285
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In most natural sciences, modeling is a widespread method of gaining new knowledge about natural and technical systems. This book analyses the concepts of 'model' and 'modeling' in different fields of research. The different methods of modeling as well as the potentials and limits of this concept are reflected and discussed. The book presents a variety of modeling techniques, from mathematical models in climatology, meteorology or oceanography to methods used in morphology, decision-making in ecology and physical modeling in oceanography. In this broad overview regarding modeling, the book is unique.

Author: J. Mark Parnis
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000094995
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Multimedia Environmental Models: The Fugacity Approach, Third Edition, takes a broad approach of viewing chemical behavior in the total biosphere of connected biotic and abiotic compartments. Chemicals are subject to the laws of "mass balance," a constraint that provides the opportunity to establish quantitative expressions for chemical fate that are central to chemical management and regulatory legislation. This book employs both the conventional concentration-based procedures and those based on application of the more elegant and powerful concept of fugacity to characterize equilibrium, steady-state distribution, and time-dependent transport between environmental phases such as air, water, and soil. Organic chemicals are emphasized because they are more easily generalized when assessing environmental behavior. Features Illustrates professional approaches to calculating the fate of chemicals in the environment Explicitly details all worked examples in an annotated step-by-step fashion Presents real-life freely downloadable models of use to government, industry, and private consulting professionals and students alike Clarifies symbols and notation

Author: Mike J. Barnsley
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1351992155
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Increasingly used to represent climatic, biogeochemical, and ecological systems, computer modeling has become an important tool that should be in every environmental professional’s toolbox. Environmental Modeling: A Practical Introduction is just what it purports to be, a practical introduction to the various methods, techniques, and skills required for computerized environmental modeling. Exploring the broad arena of environmental modeling, the book demonstrates how to represent an environmental problem in conceptual terms, formalize the conceptual model using mathematical expressions, convert the mathematical model into a program that can be run on a desktop or laptop computer, and examine the results produced by the computational model. Equally important, the book imparts skills that allow you to develop, implement, and experiment with a range of computerized environmental models. The emphasis is on active engagement in the modeling process rather than on passive learning about a suite of well-established models. The author takes a practical approach throughout, one that does not get bogged down in the details of the underlying mathematics and that encourages learning through “hands on” experimentation. He provides a set of software tools and data sets that you can use to work through the various examples and exercises presented in each chapter, as well as presentational material and handouts for course tutors. Comprehensive and up-to-date, the book discusses how computational models can be used to represent environmental systems and illustrates how such models improve understanding of the ways in which environmental systems function.

Author: Subhrajit Guhathakurta
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3662051095
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This volume is the result of an invited symposium titled "Integrated Land-Use and Environmental Models: A Survey of Current Applications and Research" that was held in October 2000 at Arizona State University. The idea for the symposium arose from a belief held by many academics that we are at the watershed of a new generation of models that are more dynamic, more pragmatic, more interdiscipli nary, and more amenable to collaborative decision making. Several academics and professionals engaged in urban research had long realized that domain-specific knowledge was inadequate for understanding and managing urban growth. While interdisciplinary approaches have become critical in most social research, one general area of knowledge that stands out as having the most wide-ranging impact on current urban modeling efforts is the field comprised of environmental sciences and ecology. The symposium offered a forum for academics and professionals engaged in urban and ecological modeling to exchange ideas and experiences, specifically in areas that overlapped urban and environmental issues. The contri butions to this volume highlight the progress made in the various efforts to build integrated urban and environmental models. More importantly, each chapter shows how ideas have diffused across disciplinary boundaries to create better policy-relevant models. In addition, this book outlines some promising areas of research that could make important contributions to the field of urban and envi ronmental modeling. Integrated thinking about urban and environmental issues has been fundamental to the concept of sustainability.

Author: István Faragó
Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
ISBN: 160805778X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
High air pollution levels pose a significant threat to plants, animals and human beings. Efforts by researchers are directed towards keeping air pollution levels below well defined ‘critical‘ levels in order to maintain a sustainable atmosphere and environmental system. The application of advanced mathematical models is important for researchers to achieve this goal as efficiently as possible. Mathematical models can be used to predict answers to many important questions about the environment. This application comes with several complex theoretical and practical obstacles which need to be resolved. A successfully applicable mathematical model needs to enable researchers to • Mathematically describe all important physical and chemical processes. • Apply fast and sufficiently accurate numerical methods. • Ensure that the model runs efficiently on modern high speed computers. • Use high quality input data, both meteorological data and emission inventories, in the runs. • Verify the model results by comparing them with reliable measurements taken in different parts of the spatial domain of the model. • Carry out long series of sensitivity experiments to check the response of the model to changes of different key parameters. • Visualize and animate the output results in order to make them easily understandable even to non-specialists. This monograph thoroughly describes mathematical methods useful for various situations in environmental modeling - including finite difference methods, splitting methods, parallel computation, etc. - and provides a framework for resolving problems posed in relation to the points listed above. Chapters are written by well-known specialists making this book a handy reference for researchers, university teachers and students working and studying in the areas of air pollution, meteorology, applied mathematics and computer science.

Author: M.B. Beck
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080531067
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
Policy-makers and the public, it has famously been said, are more interested in the possibility of non-linear dislocations and surprises in the behaviour of the environment than in smooth extrapolations of current trends. The International Task Force in Forecasting Environmental Change (1993-1998) dedicated its work to developing procedures of model building capable of addressing our palpable concerns for substantial change in the future. This volume discusses the immense challenges that such structural change presents - that the behaviour of the environment may become radically different from that observed in the past - and investigates the potentially profound implications for model development.Drawing upon case histories from the Great Lakes, acidic atmospheric deposition and, among others, the urban ozone problem, this discourse responds to a new agenda of questions. For example: "What system of 'radar' might we design to detect threats to the environment lying just beyond the 'horizon'?" and "Are the seeds of structural change identifiable within the record of the recent past?"Meticulously researched by leading environmental modellers, this milestone volume engages vigorously with its subject and offers an animated account of how models can begin to take into consideration the significant threats and uncertainties posed by structural change.

Author: Sven Erik Jorgensen
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1439818134
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
It is estimated that roughly 1000 new ecological and environmental models join the ranks of the scientific literature each year. The international peer-reviewed literature reports some 20,000 new models spanning the period from 1970-2010. Just to keep abreast of the field it is necessary to design a handbook of models that doesn't merely list them,