Ecologist-Developed Spatially-Explicit Dynamic Landscape Models
The optimal management of landscapes must incorporate the cause-and-effect relationships that have so carefully been observed by ecologists in the field. The growing availability of straightforward, user-friendly simulation modeling tools is now helping t
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Series Editors Matthias Ruth Bruce Hannon
For further volumes: http://www.springer.com/series/3427
James D. Westervelt
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Gordon L. Cohen
Editors
Ecologist-Developed Spatially Explicit Dynamic Landscape Models
Editors James D. Westervelt Construction Engineering Research Laboratory US Army Engineer Research and Development Center Champaign, IL, USA
Gordon L. Cohen Information Technology Laboratory-IL US Army Engineer Research and Development Center Champaign, IL, USA
Operational copies of the models mentioned in this book are available at http://extras.springer.com/2012/978-1-4614-1256-4. ISBN 978-1-4614-1256-4 e-ISBN 978-1-4614-1257-1 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-1257-1 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012934178 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Editors’ Foreword
We have given ourselves the job of helping to persuade you—a creative ecologist or social scientist—that you have all the necessary capabilities to begin capturing your unique expertise in simple, powerful simulation models that codify your knowledge into a computerized analytical tool. Your model gives you the opportunity to share your individual insights with your community of peers in the form of an easy-touse, science-driven computer program that they can in turn examine, use, extend, and repurpose for their own work. Simulation modeling is no longer the exclusive domain of elite computer scientists and programmers. Practical and expedient models now can be written without any mastery of low-level computer languages, numerical methods, or interface design. Simulation modeling platforms are now available that facilitate experimentation without bogging down the model builder in complicated software compiling tasks or graphical output issues. Powerful, user-friendly model-development tools have emerged—both open source programs and commercial packages—that can be mastered by anyone who has expert knowledge of a system, a fundamental understanding of desktop computers, and willingness to learn how to use software that is considerably less complicated than the everyday “office” applications that vex us all from time to time. You will find simulation modeling to be a gratifying an
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