A flexible consistent framework for modelling multiple interacting environmental responses to management in space and
Galen Holt1, Ashley Macqueen1, Rebecca E Lester1
1Centre for Regional and Rural Futures, Deakin University, Locked Bag 20000, Geelong, Victoria, 3220, Australia.
Journal of Environmental Management
|August 6, 2024
Summary
A new eFlowEval modeling framework aids environmental management by integrating diverse responses and scaling across space and time. It enhances decision-making transparency and adaptive management for environmental watering impacts.
Area of Science:
- Environmental science
- Ecosystem management
- Computational ecology
Background:
- Resource management often involves complex, multi-scale challenges.
- Assessing the success of environmental interventions requires integrating diverse biological responses.
- Environmental flow management necessitates demonstrating the impact of actions across various ecological scales.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and demonstrate the eFlowEval modeling framework for enhanced environmental management decision-making.
- To provide a flexible system for integrating diverse ecological responses and scaling them across spatial and temporal dimensions.
- To support adaptive management by capturing knowledge, comparing scenarios, and identifying data gaps.
Main Methods:
- Development of the eFlowEval modeling framework with capabilities for knowledge integration, scaling, species interactions, scenario comparison, and uncertainty analysis.
- Demonstration of the framework using three distinct environmental responses: ecosystem metabolism, royal spoonbill habitat favorability, and competing wetland plant dynamics.
- Illustration of the framework's capacity to handle variable scales (local to landscape), time frames (weeks to multi-year), driver-response model types, and spatial/temporal dependencies.
Main Results:
- The eFlowEval framework successfully integrates multiple environmental response types within a common system.
- Demonstrations show the framework's ability to assess impacts across local to basin scales and short to multi-year time frames.
- The framework accommodates inter- and intraspecific interactions, variable parameters, and dependencies, enhancing the representation of ecological complexity.
Conclusions:
- The eFlowEval framework offers novel modeling capabilities for large-scale environmental management, extending component response models.
- It enhances transparency in environmental watering decisions, captures institutional knowledge, and supports adaptive management strategies.
- The framework provides a robust mechanism for evaluating environmental watering impacts across diverse spatial and temporal scales.
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