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THE RELATED ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING FRAMEWORKS
Citation:
Laniak, G F. THE RELATED ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING FRAMEWORKS. Presented at International Workshop on Uncertainty, Sensitivity, and Parameter Estimation for Multimedia Environmental Modeling, Rockville, MD, August 19-21, 2003.
Impact/Purpose:
The current focus is to 1.) develop, distribute, and support the FRAMES-3MRA modeling technology, 2) to apply the FRAMES-3MRA modeling technology for the purposes of executing national and site-specific risk assessments, 3) to complete model application case studies to explore model performance issues, such as, model validation, 5) to collaborate with other Federal Agencies in an effort to leverage expertise and resources associated with common modeling interests, and 6) to monitor ongoing developments at the Office of Solid Waste and within the environmental modeling community in an effort to identify new needs for science modules and locate or develop solutions within the FRAMES 3MRA modeling system.
Description:
In recent years the assessment of environmental systems for the purpose of regulatory decision making has expanded considerably from a medium-specific focus to a comprehensive assessment of contaminant movement from a source, through a multi-media environment (fate and transport), to human and ecological endpoints of concern. The key word with respect to this movement is integration. In the modeling community this means that groundwater modelers, atmospheric modelers, watershed modelers, surface water modelers, ecosystem modelers, and human and ecological exposure and risk modelers must now integrate their knowledge/models to formulate solutions that address all potential impacts. Conceptually, this is a rather straight forward undertaking. Practically, it is wrought with enormous challenges; most notably: 1) the access to, collection of, and organization of the wide array of required input data; 2) the specification of data flow among the science-based models in the system; and 3) the access to modeling tools needed for managing the model interactions, viewing/processing outputs, and assessing uncertainties and sensitivities.
The objective of this presentation is to first describe the essential features of modern modeling frameworks, and, secondly, the benefits and challenges associated with integrating our collective framework development efforts in order to develop generic components that are interoperable, that is, components that will operate equally well in all frameworks. A primary conclusion offered in this presentation is the need to encourage developers of uncertainty and sensitivity methods, and models, to develop these tools in a framework independent manner.