Reiter Michael A, Saintil Max, Yang Ziming, Pokrajac Dragoljub
Integrated Environmental Science, Bethune-Cookman University, Daytona Beach, FL 32114, USA.
J Environ Manage. 2009 Aug;90(11):3253-65. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.04.018. Epub 2009 Jun 3.
Conceptual modeling is a useful tool for identifying pathways between drivers, stressors, Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), and services that are central to understanding how an ecosystem operates. The St. Jones River watershed, DE is a complex ecosystem, and because management decisions must include ecological, social, political, and economic considerations, a conceptual model is a good tool for accommodating the full range of inputs. In 2002, a Four-Component, Level 1 conceptual model was formed for the key habitats of the St. Jones River watershed, but since the habitat level of resolution is too fine for some important watershed-scale issues we developed a functional watershed-scale model using the existing narrowed habitat-scale models. The narrowed habitat-scale conceptual models and associated matrices developed by Reiter et al. (2006) were combined with data from the 2002 land use/land cover (LULC) GIS-based maps of Kent County in Delaware to assemble a diagrammatic and numerical watershed-scale conceptual model incorporating the calculated weight of each habitat within the watershed. The numerical component of the assembled watershed model was subsequently subjected to the same Monte Carlo narrowing methodology used for the habitat versions to refine the diagrammatic component of the watershed-scale model. The narrowed numerical representation of the model was used to generate forecasts for changes in the parameters "Agriculture" and "Forest", showing that land use changes in these habitats propagated through the results of the model by the weighting factor. Also, the narrowed watershed-scale conceptual model identified some key parameters upon which to focus research attention and management decisions at the watershed scale. The forecast and simulation results seemed to indicate that the watershed-scale conceptual model does lead to different conclusions than the habitat-scale conceptual models for some issues at the larger watershed scale.
概念建模是一种有用的工具，可用于识别驱动因素、压力源、重要生态系统组成部分（VECs）和服务之间的路径，这些对于理解生态系统的运作至关重要。特拉华州的圣琼斯河流域是一个复杂的生态系统，由于管理决策必须包含生态、社会、政治和经济等多方面的考虑因素，概念模型是整合所有输入信息的理想工具。2002年，针对圣琼斯河流域的关键栖息地构建了一个四组件一级概念模型，但由于栖息地层面的分辨率对于一些重要的流域尺度问题来说过于精细，因此我们利用现有的细化后的栖息地尺度模型开发了一个功能性的流域尺度模型。Reiter等人（2006年）开发的细化后的栖息地尺度概念模型及相关矩阵，与来自特拉华州肯特县基于2002年土地利用/土地覆盖（LULC）的地理信息系统地图的数据相结合，构建了一个图表式和数字化的流域尺度概念模型，该模型纳入了流域内每个栖息地的计算权重。随后，对组装好的流域模型的数值部分采用了与栖息地模型版本相同的蒙特卡洛细化方法，以完善流域尺度模型的图表部分。该模型的细化数值表示用于生成“农业”和“森林”参数变化的预测，结果表明这些栖息地的土地利用变化通过权重因子在模型结果中传播。此外，细化后的流域尺度概念模型确定了一些关键参数，这些参数是在流域尺度上开展研究和进行管理决策时需要重点关注的。预测和模拟结果似乎表明，对于一些较大流域尺度的问题，流域尺度概念模型确实会得出与栖息地尺度概念模型不同的结论。
