PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 85: GIS and Remote Sensing II; Ecological Modeling III.
Presiding: Y Lin
Thursday, August 7. 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM, SITCC Meeting Room 203.
Interdisciplinary simulations of coral reef systems for science, education and management: Results from the Florida Keys.
Polsenberg, Johanna*,1, McManus, John1, Gayanilo, Felimon1, 1 National Center for Caribbean Coral Reef Research (NCORE), Miami, FL
ABSTRACT- The establishment of a global set of comparative, long-term, interdisciplinary studies of coral reefs and reef-dependent people has been widely accepted throughout the coral reef community as an important approach to understanding the complexity of interactions involved in coral reefs and their management. It has similarly been widely recognized that decision-making for reef management is extremely complex, and that every effort must be made to make relevant information readily accessible for managers in a spatially-explicit Geographic Information System (GIS) format, supplemented with scenario-testing models. To initiate this process, we, along with groups from Mexico, Belize, the Philippines, and Australia, have begun to analyze key reef processes using data from multi-scale remote sensing and interdisciplinary fieldwork on hydrodynamics, geology, ecology, fisheries, human ecology and economics related to coral reef resilience and management. We have developed initial GIS models for the Florida Keys reef tract to integrate existing knowledge, identify information gaps, and guide the gathering of further data. In order to test various interventions or investigate a range of potential naturally-induced changes to a reef, these framework models will be augmented with multi-layer, agent-based scenario-testing simulation models toward the creation of Dynamic Decision Support Systems (DDSS). We will use a Component Assembly System with the JavaBean as the component standard. A component assembly approach facilitates the adaptation of DDSSs to new reef systems without the need for additional programming. We hope that these new computational, simulation and data analysis methods and tools to model physical, ecological and social aspects of coral reefs will also contribute to improved environmental management approaches for all ecosystems.
Key words: ecosystem modeling, agent-based models, coral reefs, Geographic Information Systems (GIS)