Simulated Systems for Environmental Planning

Sustainable management of a region’s valuable environmental assets requires comprehension of alternative ways that these resources will function into the future depending upon different policy and investment choices. Environmental resources must be understood and treated as complex systems that are part of regional and global networks. Simulated systems for environmental planning serve as planning support systems that simulate future environmental change associated with alternative futures resulting from present day decisions. These tools are included here because they utilize simulation, an important educational technology methodology, to educate citizens and stakeholders to assist with environmental decision making in public forums. These systems use visualization to produce output in formats that enable users to easily perceive trends and intuitively visualize results through the use of educational multimedia such ...