A Short History of Sustainability Oriented Modelling Endeavours

Abstract

Since the beginning of systems analytic activities aiming at understanding environmental problems and generating solutions the role of models has become more and more important. The first prominent example was the WORLD2 and 3 models of the MIT group (Forrester, Dana and Dennis Meadows). The authors of these models wanted to comprehend the dynamics around resources depletion and overload in sinks (like the atmosphere). In integrating natural and social factors they developed an interdisciplinary model approach that brought up new insights and was, at the time of first publication, an inspiration for intensive public discussions and responses in the mass media. In the following years the methodology, at the beginning “pure system dynamics”, was refined and extended, e.g. by multi-level approaches (Mesarovic) or the so-called sensitivity model (Vester). In more recent developments, like those of the integrated modelling community, meta-structures (“architectures”) are defined that assign several specific models their place within such a map of models. With these projects, applied to the problem of climate change or the analysis of ecosystem services, a powerful instrument became available, to work on rather complex sustainability problems.