Interdisciplinary modeling: gaps and bridges

The focus in this contribution is on developments in Decision Support Systems for estuarine and coastal-zone management. Due to developments in computing science and mathematics it becomes possible to integrate “the best” available knowledge and data to support the decision-maker in assessing the impacts of possible measures. However, present day facilities still require that these systems remain manageable in terms of turn around time, computer memory and development time. As a consequence of this, part of reality must be carved out and represented at such a time and space scale that the results are sufficiently accurate for the user of these systems. This leads to new research questions such as assessing the temporal and spatial resolution of the sub-systems, aggregation of processes on a longer time scale and determining the validity horizon of the systems. In this paper, these developments will be outlined based on a decision-support system for management of the Wadden Sea.