Notes on Computational Science for Natural Resource Management - Day 1


Background issues regarding course content:

Attendees are from different disciplines
We need to rely on the expertise of all attendees
Everyone has to be patient sometimes
Everyone feels lost sometimes
It is OK to not understand everything in depth

Course Goals:
    Everyone understands the big picture
    Everyone gets something new and exciting out of the course
    Not everyone gets the same thing out of the course
    Have fun!

Note that in this area there is no consensus at all on what a 
"core currculum" would consist of, there is no standard textbook, and 
there is a need to teach cross-disciplinary communication skills. 

A "Concept map" for this course would consist of recurring, key "problems" 
in resource management, as well as linkages between these, and 
the collection of computational methods and tools that interface with
these problems either currently or potentially in the future. 

Some of the components of this concept map include:

Harvest management (at differing scales depending upon the level at which 
the manager sits). 
Subsets of this are:
      Hunting regulations based upon time of year, life history of organism,
       age, sex, etc.
      Clearing/cutting/mowing schedules
      Controlled burn schedules

Access management - limiting use of area to certain activities, including 
recreation, camping, boating, building development, numbers of users per 
time period, etc. 

Input controls such as water flow management, air pollution constraints
  (such as limitations on internal combustion engines)

Population control, particularly for invasives/diseases
Subsets would be:
     Pesticide/herbicide spraying schedules
     Burn/cut/clearing schedules
     Sterile male release or other biological control organism release

Population expansion for threatened/endangered species
Subsets would be:
    Captive breeding program releases - when, where, cost/benefit
     based upon breeding program success.
    Habitat expansion/development (reclamation of land, seagrass planting to 
     preserve sand dunes)
    Dredging of water bodies

Note that the above all might contribute to biodiversity maintenance, but
the above list focuses on activities managers might carry out. A 
component of this is monitoring that would occur in all the above to
assess the impact of the management actions.