Chapter overview

The definition of environmental literacy in Chapter 2 included: (i) the proper presentation and representation of the state of the environment and its dynamics; (ii) the understanding of the human impacts on the environment and environmental feedbacks; (iii) the identification of options for actions for mitigating unwanted impacts; and (iv) the generation of knowledge for successfully coping with (i) to (iii). This chapter shows how integrated systems modeling can serve to generate this knowledge. This is done by first specifying the nature of complementarity of human and environmental systems. HES are conceived as inextricably coupled complex systems.

One challenge here is to deal properly with different types of complexity and fundamental system traits such as continuity and discontinuity. Another challenge is to acknowledge that the human factor is also forming the processes of the natural environment. Humankind has become a geological factor and thus environmental systems from the micro to the macro scale require an anthropocenic redefinition.