The geographical boundaries are usually already determined by the stakeholders. The time horizon and time step will inevitably lead the participants to focus on some questions, while other aspects are ignored.
The focus can be designed to be narrow or wider in its inclusiveness of economic and social problems, often determined by the roots of the problems. The focus will be very clear as a result of the three crucial questions listed above.
An envisioning exercise attempts to describe the future the participants want and the future that they would settle for. This vision should not be considered a static picture; it has to be redefined over time.
Finally, a survey of what we know about the system and the problem is presented, including a list of data and observations.
During the third stage of the workshop, a qualitative model is built.The modeller is translating the discussion into state variables, processes, and forcing functions. Simultaneously, he is explaining the meaning of these modelling components, and what it means when the model presents a relationship between forcing functions and state variables. The possibilities for changing the forcing functions and making simulations accordingly will inevitably become a part of the debate in
this phase of the model development. It may be beneficial to break up into smaller groups to discuss submodels. Causalities, interacting processes, or possible change of forcing functions should be discussed aswell.
The fourth stage of the workshop focuses on the quantitative model.The quantitative process description requires an extensive discussion among the participants. It is crucial that the quantitative description of processes adheres to the known ecosystem dynamics. Another topic,open for the discussion at this stage, is the use of indicators. Which indicators best express the system quality and can be used in the follow-up
phase when the model results are implemented to pursue the best possible environmental strategy? J rgensen et al. (2005, 2010) provided a good overview of possible indicators.
When the quantitative model is prepared, the observations are compared to the model simulations and the possibilities for calibrations are discussed. In some cases, it may be beneficial to close the workshop and
leave the calibration and validation to a modelling team and re-open the workshop when the calibration and validation are ready.