A Scenario Approach to Modeling of the Pacific Trash Vortex

Abstract

The study performed aimed at constructing and comparing scenarios of the solid waste treatment policy in different countries and their influence on variations of environmental dynamics changes in the area of ecological catastrophe – Pacific trash vortex. As input data for the scenario constructing and performing corresponding analysis the statistics for the solid waste processing in the USA, European Union and Singapore was used. The models were constructed for forecasting of the waste accumulated and the percentage of their processing. It was established that the process of the waste accumulation is described best with autoregressive model and structural model with trend. The basic trends for further development of the process under study have been discovered. Over the next ten years the implementation of various solid waste treatment scenarios in the world can cause a variety of implications for the Pacific trash vortex and ecological situation in general, as discussed in the article. A comparative analysis of the policy scenarios for the solid waste treatment was carried out. Using as an example this environmental problem a general methodology of scenario building is described. The indicators to define the robustness of these scenarios and the best one of them were found using actual data. The following tools were used for the purpose: scenario modeling, decision tree constructing for probabilistic modeling, autoregression models and models with description of trend.