Optimal control in space and time and the management of environmental resources

Abstract

We present methods and tools that can be used to study dynamic environmental resource management in a spatial setting, to explore spatially dependent regulation, and to understand pattern formation. In particular, we present the maximum principle and its use in the context of the emerging frontier of applications of optimal control of diffusive transport processes to environmental and resource economics. We show how optimal spatiotemporal control induces pattern formation and how deep uncertainty with a spatial structure can be handled with spatial robust control methods. Finally, we show how models with diffusive transport can be extended to allow for long-range effects and more general transport mechanisms.