Lesson 4

Read the text: Landscape Simulation Models

Many, if not most, management decisions concerning the environment affect and are affected by the landscape. City and county planning authorities make decisions about land use and infrastructure that directly affect the landscape. Farmers make decisions about what to grow and how to grow it that affect and are affected by the landscape. Individual homeowners and businesses make decisions about their own behavior that affects and is affected by the landscape. Therefore, understanding and modeling the spatial patterns of landscape processes and changes over time at several different scales is critical to effective environmental management.

In recognition of this, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has moved away from their traditional “media-based” approach to environmental management and toward a more “place-based” approach. To operationalize this approach, we need to develop a deeper understanding of the complex spatial and temporal linkages between and among ecological and economic systems on the landscape and to use that understanding to develop effective and adaptive policies. This will require new methods that are comprehensive, adaptive, integrative, multiscale, and pluralistic, and which acknowledge the huge uncertainties involved.

Landscape modeling studies at local, regional, and global scales integrate natural and social sciences and develop a common framework for understanding linked ecological economic systems.

Among landscape models there is a large variation in complexity and capabilities. Often, it is this variation that makes one model more suitable for certain applications than others. Landscape models are, by definition, spatially explicit. They can range across several other spectra of characteristics, including empirical to process-based, static to dynamic, simple to complex, and low to high spatial and temporal resolution.

As a rule of thumb, more complex, higher-resolution models will resolve issues in more detail, but are more difficult and time-consuming to calibrate and run, and beyond a certain point, they may, in fact, provide decreasing predictability. The spatially explicit landscape simulation models (SELSMs) are, in general, process-based, medium to high spatial and temporal resolution, relatively complex, dynamic, nonlinear simulations of the landscape. They deal with a range of ecological and socio-economic variables, including carbon, water, nitrogen, phosphorus, plants, consumers (including humans), and a range of ecosystem services under various climate, economic, and policy scenarios. They can exhibit “catastrophic,” irreversible changes of system structure and function at specific sites and can, therefore, be used to test hypotheses about system sustainability across a range of scales.

Some landscape models include horizontal fluxes and exchange across cells, whereas others do not. One common horizontal flux for the ecological component of the models is water, controlled by a hydrological model. In addition to water, other possible horizontal fluxes include movement of air, animals, energy (such as fire, water waves, and fuels), and economic goods and services. The least complex interaction between horizontal and vertical fluxes is unidirectional, where horizontal fluxes provide the conditions for calculating vertical fluxes. A more complex approach would include bidirectional exchanges of information between the horizontal and vertical fluxes.

Exercise 1. Read and memorize using a dictionary:

environment, flux, landscape, predictability, explicit, irreversible, spatial, huge, uncertainty, linkage, fuel, approach, sustainability, complexity, comprehensive, temporal, suitable, resolution

Exercise 2. Answer the questions:

1. What do many management decisions concerning the environment affect?

2. How did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency change their approach to environmental management?

3. What studies integrate natural and social sciences and develop a common framework for understanding linked ecological economic systems?

4. What do the spatially explicit landscape simulation models deal with?

Exercise 3. Complete the sentences with the suggested words: complexity, explicit, landscape, suitable, one

Among _____ models there is a large variation in _____ and capabilities. Often, it is this variation that makes _____ model more _____ for certain applications than others. Landscape models are, by definition, spatially _____.

Exercise 4. Ask questions to the given answers:

1. Question: ______________________________________________?

Answer: City and county planning authorities make decisions about land use and infrastructure that directly affect the landscape

2. Question: ______________________________________________?

Answer: The spatially explicit landscape simulation models are, in general, process-based, medium to high spatial and temporal resolution, relatively complex, dynamic, nonlinear simulations of the landscape.

3. Question: ______________________________________________?

Answer: The least complex interaction between horizontal and vertical fluxes is unidirectional, where horizontal fluxes provide the conditions for calculating vertical fluxes.

Exercise 5. Match the left part with the right:

1. Farmers make decisions about what to grow and	a) more suitable for certain applications than others.
2. Often, it is this variation that makes one model	b) how to grow it that affect and are affected by the landscape.
3. They can range across several other spectra of characteristics, including	c) of the models is water, controlled by a hydrological model.
4. One common horizontal flux for the ecological component	d) empirical to process-based, static to dynamic, simple to complex, and low to high spatial and temporal resolution.

Exercise 6. Learn the following definitions:

Sustainability is the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed.

A variable is a characteristic, number, or quantity that increases or decreases over time, or takes different values in different situations.

Modeling is the representation, often mathematical, of a process, concept, or operation of a system, often implemented by a computer program.

Exercise 7. Compose a story on one of the topics (up to 100 words):

“Landscape modeling”

“Landscape simulation”