An object-oriented framework for dynamic ecosystem modeling: application for integrated risk assessment

Ecological risk assessment requires the integration of a wide range of data on anthropogenic processes, ecological processes and on processes related to environmental fate and transport. It is a major challenge to assemble a simulation system that can successfully capture the dynamics of complex ecological systems and an even more serious challenge to be able to adapt such a simulation to shifting and expanding analytical requirements and contexts. The dynamic information architecture system (DIAS) is a flexible, extensible, object-based framework for developing and maintaining complex simulations. DIAS supports simulations in which the real-world entities that make up ecological systems are represented as software 'entity objects'. The object-oriented integrated dynamic landscape analysis and modeling system (OO-IDLAMS) provides a good example of how DIAS has been used to build a suite of models for the purpose of assessing the ecological impacts of military land use and land management practices. OO-IDLAMS is a prototype conservation modeling suite that provides military environmental managers and decision-makers with a strategic, integrated and adaptive approach to natural resources planning and ecosystem management. The OO-IDLAMS prototype used Fort Riley, Kansas as a case study to demonstrate DIAS' capabilities to offer flexibility, interprocess dynamics and cost-effective reuse of code for ecosystem modeling and simulation. DIAS can also readily lend itself to other applications in ecological risk assessment. It has great potential for the integration of ecological models (associated with biological uptake and effects) with environmental fate and transport models. A DIAS ecological risk assessment application could be used to predict the magnitude and extent of ecological risks and evaluate remedy effectiveness in a timely and cost-effective manner.