Global warming and population growth have resulted in an increase in the intensity of natural and anthropogenic stressors. Investigating the complex nature of environmental problems requires the integration of different environmental processes across major components of the environment, including water, climate, ecology, air, and land. Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) not only includes analyzing and modeling environmental changes, but also supports planning alternatives that promote environmental monitoring and management. Disjointed and narrowly focused environmental management approaches have proved dissatisfactory. The adoption of integrated modelling approaches has sparked interests in the development of frameworks which may be used to investigate the processes of individual environmental component and the ways they interact with each other. Integrated modelling systems and frameworks are often the only way to take into account the important environmental processes and interactions, relevant spatial and temporal scales, and feedback mechanisms of complex systems for CEA. This book examines the ways in which interactions and relationships between environmental components are understood, paying special attention to climate, land, water quantity and quality, and both anthropogenic and natural stressors. It reviews modelling approaches for each component and reviews existing integrated modelling systems for CEA. Finally, it proposes an integrated modelling framework and provides perspectives on future research avenues for cumulative effects assessment.

Global warming and population growth have resulted in an increase in the intensity of natural and anthropogenic stressors. Investigating the complex nature of environmental problems requires the integration of different environmental processes across major components of the environment, including water, climate, ecology, air, and land. Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) not only includes analyzing and modeling environmental changes, but also supports planning alternatives that promote environmental monitoring and management.Disjointed and narrowly focused environmental management approaches have proved dissatisfactory. The adoption of integrated modelling approaches has sparked interests in the development of frameworks which may be used to investigate the processes of individual environmental component and the ways they interact with each other. Integrated modelling systems and frameworks are often the only way to take into account the important environmental processes and interactions, relevant spatial and temporal scales, and feedback mechanisms of complex systems for CEA. This book examines the ways in which interactions and relationships between environmental components are understood, paying special attention to climate, land, water quantity and quality, and both anthropogenic and natural stressors. It reviews modelling approaches for each component and reviews existing integrated modelling systems for CEA. Finally, it proposes an integrated modelling framework and provides perspectives on future research avenues for cumulative effects assessment.

A protection strategy in environmental management such as groundwater vulnerability mapping is a powerful tool for decision making and land use planning. Groundwater vulnerability evaluates a multilayer system over a large basin. It has a large and complex data and variables. Geographical Information System (GIS) provides an easy means to analyze large and complex groundwater data. These complexities also necessitate a systematic approach such as Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) for decision analysis in a framework that supports hydrogeological spatial attributes as well as facilitates the incorporation of knowledge, experience and judgments in the vulnerability assessment. In addition, statistical methods can be integrated with hydrogeological model to calibrate the original model and validate the results.