Theme 2: Modeling

OVERVIEW

The core objective of the modelling theme is to develop tools that can help understand the implications of landscape management options. While different drivers, services, interactions, and beneficiaries will feature across our core working landscapes, we will develop common methods to address fundamental aspects ecosystem complexity and document how populations benefit from ecosystem service flows. These are often absent from existing ES models and frameworks.

CHALLENGES FACING MODELLING

Choosing which aspects of ecosystem complexity to incorporate into modeling, and the level of complexity
Linking communities to the ecosystems upon which they depend

Modeling distal and tele-coupled connections between the environment and people
Building on innovative modeling work happening across the world

KEY CONCEPTS

Ecosystem complexity
Social-Ecological Systems / Coupled human-natural systems
Ecosystem service dependency

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

Advance the frontiers of ecosystem services modelling by integrating core components system complexity – e.g., non-linearities, feedbacks, teleconnections, and landscape legacies – into ecosystem service production models.
Integrate communities into models to better account for how ecosystem service flows are captured by human beneficiaries on the landscape. We aim to bring these two research objectives together into a coupled framework that can reliably and accurately predict and understand the implications of landscape management decisions.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES
We will develop:

A generalized model that is applicable to any Canadian landscape using publicly available data suitable for higher-level analysis.
Landscape-specific models for a select number of our working landscapes using landscape-specific data to address more specific problems.