UMass Boston

Course Overview

Description

This course will advance students understanding of social-ecological systems, how social-ecological systems change over time, and how a systems dynamics modeling approach is ideal for understanding social-ecological systems. Students will focus on fundamental concepts of system dynamics and the modeling process by using real-world environmental issues. System Dynamics is an ideal methodology for studying sustainability research questions because it provides the qualitative and quantitative tools (i) for understanding the feedbacks, accumulation, nonlinearities, surprises, delays within social ecological systems; (ii) for tracing the roots of the problem by studying in depth the structure and the processes underlying the relationships between social and ecological systems; (iii) for testing alternative policy and management scenarios and designing sustainable pathways of development.