Evidence-based model structure: The role of causal analysis in hydro-ecological modelling

Abstract

Understanding the mechanisms by which human interventions affect environmental values is fundamental to sound environmental decision-making and the development of environmental response models used in decision making. The structure of an environmental response model, either conceptual or mathematical, should be based on pathways of causation linking input variables to model outputs and predictions. In ecological systems, these causal pathways are often not well-established, resulting in model structures that are based largely on expert opinion. The published literature can provide considerable qualitative and quantitative evidence to support the development of more rigorously-based model str..