Participatory Modeling in Environmental Systems

摘要

Participatory modeling has grown in popularity in recent years as a tool to investigate environmental systems and generate consensus among stakeholders around environmental problems. System dynamics has one of the longest track records of any modeling field of incorporating stakeholder input into model-building, and therefore has much to offer the growing field of participatory modeling. However, key challenges remain to conducting participatory modeling processes in environmental systems. These include: variation in stakeholders' goals and desired outcomes in environmental systems; feasibility of assembling relevant stakeholders; temporal and spatial scale of the problems encountered and presence of exogenous drivers; difficulty in collecting information relevant to the problem; and the need for specialized and scientific knowledge about the system being modeled. Participatory modeling efforts around the environment would benefit from the lessons contained in the system dynamics group modeling literature, while simultaneously moving the field forward by addressing the challenges mentioned above.