ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the new modeling approaches and introduces a spatial dimension into modeling. The development on the software front has been overwhelming during the last decade and has, for instance, made it possible on personal computers to develop regional models and models of entire landscape. The chapter describes an alpine tundra simulation model that has been developed within a hierarchical framework based primarily on data from Niwot Ridge and adjacent areas of the Colorado Front Range. It discusses a spectrum of various modeling tools or auxiliary models which are able to assist the modeler in such preparatory tasks as, for instance, estimations of parameters and equations. It allows the user to perform analysis and assessment on a global scale of the linkages among social and economic processes, biophysical processes and effects on ecosystems and humans from an integrated system dynamics perspective.
