Key Questions for Working Group Theme Two: Complex, Adaptive and Hierarchical Systems

Question A.
How can we develop the appropriate level of understanding to allow us to model, manage and engineer complex, adaptive, hierarchical ecological and man-made systems?

What are complex systems and how can we characterize complexity?

Which is the role and which are the characteristics of adaptational processes as focal features of CAHS in ecological and human aspects?

What can we learn from the hierarchical structurization of CAHS and how can we apply hierarchy theory and the respective knowledge to the investigation of complexity? Which role does the selected level - of - understanding play for the comprehension of complex entities?

Which is the practical role of hierarchical constraints and how do they affect ecological dynamics in different cases? What is the role of abiotic constraints, such as weather dynamics e.g. in the functioning of aquatic ecosystems?

What are the basic necessities to execute a "macroscopic pattern analysis" and which are the fundamental indicators to describe CAHS as holistic entities?

Which is the potential of a corresponding "deep science approach"?

How can the responding indicators to describe and to evaluate CAHS be quantified in a satisfactory manner?

Which is the potential of modelling methodologies for the understanding and the management of CAHS and how can engineering principles be applied to practical environmental decision making?

What does the insight that human environmental systems are CAHS imply for the idea of predictability and control?

How can models be integrated into participatory assessment studies in an optimal manner?

Which are the basic requirements to realize sustainable developmental strategies for economic, ecological and social (sub)systems and how can these parts be integrated? Which is the specific role of institutions for sustainable management strategies, how do they treat the co-evolution of social and ecological systems and how can these interactions be modeled?

Which role for the improvement of sustainable landscape management strategies can be provided by "eco-principles" and by "ecosophy"?

Question B.
Can we develop models and principles (or even a theory or a pattern of theories)
which could be the basis of a more profound knowledge and understanding of complex, adaptive, hierarchical ecological and human systems?

Which are the scientific roles of models, theoretical principles, patterns of theoretical concepts, and theories to improve the comprehension of CAHS?

Which are the potentials and the limitations of different modelling techniques for the comprehension of CAHS?

Which are the special areas of relevance of the different theoretical approaches to understand CAHS? Which is the specific contribution of information and information theory for the state of CAHS and for their developmental potentials? What information can be gained from thermodynamic analysis of ecological, sociological, and economic systems?

Which roles can extremal principles take in this context and which is their potential for future research strategies? Which are these extremal principles and how are they interrelated? Which ecosystem goal functions or orientors should be recommended for the understanding of CAHS in the ecological context at different levels-of-development? Are the theoretical ideas of goal functions, maturity attributes and orientors acceptable from the point - of - view of empirical research, succession theory and from the ideas of theory of science?

How can knowledge about the functioning of CAHS be utilized optimally to improve the state, the health, and the integrity of the environmental systems?