A Workshop on: Integrated Regional Models and Analysis of Human-Nature Interactions, to be held October 4-8, 1992, Millbrook, NY

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This project will support a workshop on Integrated Regional Models (IRM) for analysis of human-nature interactions. Integrated regional models are conceptual and mathematically based models that include within the structure of the model mathematical descriptions of the physical environment, biological interactions, and human decision making and its consequences. Despite concerns about "global" change, many key scientific and policy issues in the environment are developed, considered and ultimately implemented on regional scales - local jurisdictions, watersheds, agricultural production regions. At these scales, regional interactions of physical, biological and social systems play a critical role in defining the problems that must be resolved. Environmental issues which require an integrated analysis include coastal zone management, regional atmospheric chemistry and pollution, non-point source pollution, commodity production in forested landscapes, and urban growth. Progress on coupling models from physical, biological and social sciences has been limited by lack of interactions between disciplines, differences in technical approaches, and the absence of appropriate interdisciplinary data sets. The objective of the workshop will be to provide a forum for scientists from different disciplines to learn about the state of knowledge and models in other disciplines, and to explore ways that scientists from different disciplines can work together on the same problems. Further, the workshop will identify specific steps and data requirements necessary for the development of IRM's for specific environmental problems. The workshop will open with paired overviews of physical, biological and social science models by scientists from both within and outside of each discipline. The workshop will then move on to group discussions of specific problems requiring IRM's, and finally to group discussions of specific regions and how differences in physical, biological and social variables in different regions will affect the development of IRM's. Workshop participants will be evenly divided between physical, social, biological and integrative disciplines, and will include scientists from several countries.