Useless Arithmetic: Ten Points to Ponder When Using Mathematical Models in Environmental Decision Making

摘要

As policy makers and public administrators are acutely aware, mathematical models are , simplified, generalized representations of a process or system, and their use in public administration is ubiquitous across policy domains. Perhaps nowhere, however, has their content, power, and efficacy as aids to decision making been more prevalent or potent than in the domain of environmental and natural resources (ENR) management. The move to quantify earth and biological sciences, the widespread availability of powerful desktop computers, and the dawn of predictive mathematical modeling all arrived simultaneously in the final quarter of the twentieth century.rnIn short order, predictive modeling of the earth's natural processes soon found widespread application (Sarewitz, Pielke, and Byerly 2000). Consider but a few examples of processes in nature that are routinely modeled and from which policy makers are presumed to make better judgments when incorporated in their ENR management decision calculi: the environmental impacts of a proposed project, atmosphere pollutant dispersal, groundwater pollutant dispersal, radionu-clide waste disposal, sea-level change, weather patterns, climate changes, storm behavior, river flooding, fisheries yields, and shoreline retreat.