MIKE ECO Lab is a numerical lab for Ecological Modelling. It is an open and generic tool for customising Aquatic Ecosystem models to describe water quality, eutrophication, heavy metals and ecology. The module is mostly used for modelling water quality as part of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of different human activities, but the tool is also applied in aquaculture for e.g optimizing the production of fish, seagrasses and mussels. Another use is in online forecasts of water quality.
The need for tailor-made ecosystem descriptions is big because ecosystems vary. The strength of this tool is the easy modification and implementation of mathematical descriptions of ecosystems into the hydrodynamic MIKE engines.
MIKE ECO Lab utilises so-called Template files with the filename ‘.ecoLab’ (in the following named MIKE ECO Lab File). The MIKE ECO Lab template files are customized collections of equations and parameters required for a specific type of Water Quality simulations. The user may use one of the predefined MIKE ECO Lab Templates, which is installed together with the MIKE Zero installation - or may choose to develop own model concepts. The module can describe dissolved substances, particulate matter of dead or living material, living biological organisms and other components (all referred to as state variables in this context).
The module was developed to describe chemical, biological, ecological processes and interactions between state variables, but it can also describe the physical sedimentation process of components. State variables included in MIKE ECO Lab can either be transported by advection-dispersion processes based on hydrodynamics, or have a more fixed nature (e.g. rooted vegetation).
More details on MIKE ECO Lab can be found in the specific MIKE ECO Lab documentation, which can be accessed from the MIKE Zero Documentation Index.