SOCIOECONOMIC ECOLOGICAL MODELS - CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF STATE-OF-THE-ART MODELS SHOWN ON 4 CASE-STUDIES

Integrated projects, for example, Global Change, Man and Biosphere or LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research), pose new challenges to construct large, integrated, socio-economic ecological models. Criteria to evaluate and judge models have been around for quite some time, such as quality of calibration, availability of documentation, successfully passed validations, etc. But now additional requirements have to be fulfilled, which are described here. One of the most essential issues may be the partial unpredictability inherent in almost all systems. Here a systematic, encompassing scheme is provided on how to deal with the unexpected. The requirements mentioned before and this scheme are used to evaluate four integrated socio-economic ecological case studies(1) which also involved model construction. The models were also used for predictions. The correctness of predictions and the causes for failures were, for several of these models, repeatedly and thoroughly evaluated. The case studies seem to be representative for the state of the art, also in their weaknesses.