Abstract for: How to operationalise the social in social-ecological models and simulations: Two mutually linked perspectives

Modelling and simulation are often used to understand and solve socio-environmental problems. This requires collaboration between different scientific disciplines, each with its own perspective. When incorporating social aspects into interdisciplinary models, it is important to consider two different perspectives: a structural and a process perspective. The structural perspective focuses on the components of the model, i.e. the units under consideration and their interactions within and between different domains, and how they are selected. The procedural perspective sees modelling as a social and communicative process and therefore emphasises the social processes and components that lead to an appropriate model. Using sociological knowledge, we have investigated the integration of social aspects in social-ecological modelling. We have gained insights into the path dependency of model structures and identified an extended hierarchical structure of modelling. These findings have led to important considerations that can serve as guidelines for good modelling practice in the future. We present these and discuss how the interactions between the two perspectives can improve the process of interdisciplinary modelling.