Differences and similarities between ecological and economic models for biodiversity conservation |
| |
Authors: | Martin Drechsler Volker Grimm Frank Wätzold |
| |
Institution: | a UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle GmbH, Department of Ecological Modelling, Germany b Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Palazzo Querini Stampalia, Campo S. Maria Formosa, Castello 5252, 30122 Venezia FEEM, Italy c UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle GmbH, Department of Economics, Germany |
| |
Abstract: | In this paper we investigate an important obstacle which substantially complicates co-operation between ecologists and economists but which has received little attention so far: differences between the modelling approaches in economics and ecology. To understand these differences, 60 models addressing issues relevant to biodiversity conservation have been selected randomly from eight international economic and ecological journals. The models have been compared according to a number of criteria including the models' level of generality; the mathematical techniques employed for formulation and solution of the models; the level of complexity and the way time, space and uncertainty are taken into account. The economic models sampled are formulated and analysed analytically, tend to be relatively simple and are mostly used to investigate general questions. Furthermore, they often ignore space, dynamics and uncertainty. Although some ecological models have similar properties, there is also a substantial number of another type of ecological models that are relatively complex and analysed by simulation. These models tend to be rather specific and often explicitly consider dynamics, space and uncertainty. The integrated ecological-economic models are observed to lie “in the middle” between ecological and economic models. An unexpected result is that they are not more complex than ecological and economic models (as one could have expected from a simple “merger” of models from both disciplines), but have an intermediate complexity. |
| |
Keywords: | B40 C60 Q57 |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|