Socio-technical scales in socio-environmental modeling: Managing a system-of-systems modeling approach

• Published in: Environmental modelling & software : with environment data news 2021-01, Vol.135, p.104885-104885, Article 104885
• Main Authors: Iwanaga, Takuya, Wang, Hsiao-Hsuan, Hamilton, Serena H., Grimm, Volker, Koralewski, Tomasz E., Salado, Alejandro, Elsawah, Sondoss, Razavi, Saman, Yang, Jing, Glynn, Pierre, Badham, Jennifer, Voinov, Alexey, Chen, Min, Grant, William E., Peterson, Tarla Rai, Frank, Karin, Shenk, Gary, Barton, C. Michael, Jakeman, Anthony J., Little, John C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Decision making; Environment models; Environmental impact; Environmental modeling; Integrated modeling; Interdisciplinary modeling; Scale issues; Social sciences; Social-ecological modeling; Social-ecological systems; System of systems; System-of-systems approach
• ISSN: 1364-8152; 1873-6726
• DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2020.104885

System-of-systems approaches for integrated assessments have become prevalent in recent years. Such approaches integrate a variety of models from different disciplines and modeling paradigms to represent a socio-environmental (or social-ecological) system aiming to holistically inform policy and decision-making processes. Central to the system-of-systems approaches is the representation of systems in a multi-tier framework with nested scales. Current modeling paradigms, however, have disciplinary-specific lineage, leading to inconsistencies in the conceptualization and integration of socio-environmental systems. In this paper, a multidisciplinary team of researchers, from engineering, natural and social sciences, have come together to detail socio-technical practices and challenges that arise in the consideration of scale throughout the socio-environmental modeling process. We identify key paths forward, focused on explicit consideration of scale and uncertainty, strengthening interdisciplinary communication, and improvement of the documentation process. We call for a grand vision (and commensurate funding) for holistic system-of-systems research that engages researchers, stakeholders, and policy makers in a multi-tiered process for the co-creation of knowledge and solutions to major socio-environmental problems. •Scale incompatibilities among system representations are a key challenge in socio-environmental systems modeling.•Issues of scale arise from the complexity, size and heterogeneity of the constituent systems and their interactions.•A more holistic systems-of-systems modeling framework is needed within which to integrate current approaches and tools.•Socio-technical considerations for system-of-systems modeling is presented from a range of disciplinary perspectives.