How Mathematics used in Environment

Some people claim that the discoveries made by scientists contribute to the destruction of the natural environment. Professor Louis Gross at the University of Tennessee shows that the case can equally be made for the opposite. He is a mathematical ecologist, applying advanced mathematics to the problems of managing the natural environment to maximize the benefits to the whole natural system. The pressures of human life have an effect on the rest of nature and by understanding how the relationships work, everyone and everything might get some of what they want.

It turns out that these problems are not trivial mathematically. The flow pattern of a river might have a linear relationship with the rainfall in a particular place, but what happens when the river bursts its banks? Or if it rains after a period of drought? And how do you know what the rainfall is going to be anyway?

Not only are many natural processes essentially stochastic they also require nonlinear algebra to describe them. Getting meaningful results is a huge mathematical and computational exercise. This is why Gross, like many scientists from other, more conventional fields, has turned his attention to the mathematics of the natural world – it has some of the most interesting mathematical problems. Mathematical biology has achieved a high profile through cell biology and genomics, but at the scale of the whole ecosystem it is still in its emerging stage and the field has many opportunities to do new things.