Early Development of Systems Analysis in Natural Resources Management form Man and nature to The Miami conservancy District

摘要

Contemporary approaches to natural re- sources and environmental decision-making typically draw on a "systems" perspective to assess and improve man- agement strategies. This paper describes the early genesis of the systems analysis approach. It concentrates on a pe- riod between the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. During the early part of this period, George Marsh's Man and Na- ture and related works laid out an approach to problem- solving that recognized the relationship among physically disperse elements in the environment, the need to balance benefits against costs, the potential for using quantitative modeling to understand management options, and the im- portance of integrating human and natural components into solutions.