Accepted:
01 Nov 2000
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/vol08/chikum01/ | © Copyright 2001 | |||
| Volume 08 | Received: Accepted: |
15 Jul 2000 01 Nov 2000 |
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Large scale ecosystem management as a complex systems problem: multi-objective optimisation with spatial constraints
Chikumbo, O., Bradbury, R. & Davey, S. |
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| Abstract | |
| Modelling environmental sustainability is a challenging job because of the spontaneous complex behaviour that emerges from the interaction of a large number of simple components of that environment. Therefore, modelling environmental sustainability can be viewed as calculating macroscopic observables such as the energy of a many-body system. As the size of the system grows, the calculation becomes more difficult, time consuming and inaccurate. However, average quantities can be computed by direct simulation. A Monte Carlo simulation approach can be used for the computation that takes a guess at the final answer and then improves on the guess by an unbiased, efficient, statistical sample of the state space available to the system. A case study on a large-scale ecosystem management problem is used to illustrate a Metropolis Monte Carlo method, which is a way to perform importance sampling and thereby accurately calculate 'thermal' averages by considering only a limited number of the many possible states (or trajectories) of the system. The problem here is formulated as a multi-objective optimisation problem with spatial constraints that assist in spreading the impact of forest harvesting operations in the area. | |
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Multimedia Links (none) Reference Links (none) Citation Reference Chikumbo, O., Bradbury, R. & Davey, S. (2001), Large scale ecosystem management as a complex systems problem: multi-objective optimisation with spatial constraints, Complexity International, Volume 08, Paper ID: chikum01, URL: http://www.complexity.org.au/ci/vol08/chikum01/ |
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