Uncertainty in Models for Environmental Management

In recent years, computer models have become increasingly popular as tools to aid the decision-maker in balancing complex, interacting factors in environmental management and pollution control. This trend has accelerated in the last five years or so as a result of dramatic advances in microcomputer technology which have placed small yet high powered machines in the hands of most decision-makers. The challenge to today's modelers is to develop techniques which consider both deterministic and stochastic aspects of complex natural systems but which also are sufficiently simple for implementation on available microcomputers. This paper reviews some of the difficulties in developing an approach that has these attributes.