Next Generation Environmental Models and Computational Methods

Citation

Harwood, C.J. (1998), "Next Generation Environmental Models and Computational Methods", Kybernetes, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 460-461. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.1998.27.4.460.6

Applications of today’s supercomputers can only present to the fields of cybernetics and systems an insight into so many fascinating studies. This book, however, is a straightforward catalogue of the proceedings of a gathering sponsored by the USA EPA, so much of the enthusiasm is lost in the text. Nothing, as they say, can replace the “telling”. That said, a record of conference proceedings is a necessity in most fields of endeavour. Unfortunately, not all conference organisers or indeed publishers of proceedings are really equipped to do the job, and a great deal is lost in the poor presentation. It has often been said that there should be strict standards for the publication of the proceedings of meetings, conferences and congresses so that they faithfully reproduce what has actually taken place and include at least some of the many discussions that inevitably concentrate around certain fields. Some organisers are happy to choose the papers to be presented months before the meeting, and demand copies be produced according to some format so that they can be published after the meeting without any change or editing. In my experience these papers only bear a passing resemblance to the actual presentations at the meeting and the discussions that follow. Why do scientists accept such a non‐scientific way of communicating science?

This book falls into this trap in many of its sections. But at least the models that were presented were put into classifications in accordance with the application areas that had been selected. Sections included: Aquatic Systems; Groundwater Transport of Contaminants; Hydrodynamic Modelling for the Mass Balance Project (Lake Michigan); New Computational Approaches for Chemically Reactive Transport in Porous Media. These and many more sections contained details of the models and their applications and also, of more interest to the readers of this journal, the actual way in which projects were being tackled on the very high speed computers now available to us. It was interesting to note, for example, that there is now an interest in a multidiscipline approach which sees aeronautical techniques such as grid‐adaptive methodology being used in the solution of problems in the environment. Such multi‐ and transdisciplinary approaches can only yield progress and will be reflected in the next generation of environmental models, and indeed in the computational methods which this text has described. This is a book, therefore, in my view that is strictly for the library shelves where its information will be of value, for a while at least, to computer modellers who are not only concerned with the environment but also with computational methods and multidisciplinary approaches to varied application areas.