Thematic Issue on

Expert Opinion in Environmental Management and Modelling

Issue Editors:

Tobias Krueger, Trevor Page, Laurence Smith, Alexey Voinov

To download this call for papers please go here.

Aim

Contributions are invited to a forthcoming thematic issue of Environmental Modelling & Software devoted to the role of expert opinion in environmental management and modelling.

Managing natural resources requires the integrated consideration of natural, social, economic and political systems. It has increasingly been realised that this goal is best achieved through stakeholder deliberation facilitated by interdisciplinary scientific analysis. The complexity of the relevant processes necessitates analytical tools collating different disciplinary perspectives for research and deliberation. Assembling such tools is an exceedingly complex task as the number of components to be considered increases with the variety of environmental, socio-economic and political factors that are relevant. Moreover, the evidence base of how each component is functioning varies in terms of quality. Confronting these challenges of complexity and uncertainty often requires looking beyond measured data and traditional computer models to harness many other forms of expert opinion for environmental management. At the same time, the term expert may then include not only scientists and practitioners but also other stakeholders and trusted observers. Engaging with experts, in turn, offers great opportunities for enhancing the deliberative management process.

While a previous thematic issue was focused on stakeholder participation (“Modelling with Stakeholders”), in this issue we are interested in the role of and input from experts in a very broad sense, including experts who may or may not be stakeholders in the process. We invite papers that take a detailed look at the level and nature of expert opinion behind existing tools to support environmental management and that highlight recent innovations. In particular, we are interested in contributions that can help answer some of the following questions:

• Which expert opinions are used implicitly when assembling scientific principles into mechanistic computer models?

• What are the tools that incorporate expert opinion explicitly, such as qualitative expert systems, decision trees, probabilistic networks, fuzzy systems etc.? How can we test and improve these?

• What are the methods of expert elicitation? How to assess and compare expertise, representativeness and uncertainty?

• Which elements of social learning may result from expert elicitation? Are there benefits for environmental management and governance?

• What is the distinction between experts and stakeholders? Do we treat them differently? When is a stakeholder an expert, and what makes an expert a stakeholder? How do they interact?

• Qualitative and quantitative expertise – what are the differences? How to merge the two in models and tools?

Structure

Papers developed around a RELU workshop on Expert Systems for Natural Resources Management held in January 2009[1] will be reviewed to form the backbone of the thematic issue. Additional relevant contributions are sought that tackle questions such as those stated above. We explicitly invite the papers that could not be considered for the previous thematic issue on Modelling with Stakeholders.

Participation and timeline

The editors would like to extend an open opportunity to the membership of iEMSs and the wider science community to participate in the development of the thematic issue, through either submitting or reviewing papers.

If you are interested in participating, please email your contact details and intended contribution (title, authors, abstract) to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . After an initial selection of responses, we will ask for full papers by 31 June 2010.

We will use a three step review process: (1) abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors and recommendations will be made regarding the scope of the full paper; (2) full papers will be sent out for external peer review following Environmental Modelling & Software policy; (3) revised manuscripts will be examined by the Guest Editors and, where necessary, the external reviewers.

The Catchment Science Centre (University of Sheffield) and the Centre for Water Research (Peking University) are pleased to invite applications to attend an international summer school in China on Integrated Catchment Management, 10-20 July 2010. The first week of workshops will be led by senior researchers from the UK, USA and China. These will be followed by field visits to the North China Plain and the Heihe river basin. The whole event will be in English.

There are bursaries of up to £750 available to support UK researchers (because the summer school is part sponsored by Research Councils UK). Applications are welcome from all countries, but non-UK delegates will have to fund themselves completely. Only 30 places are available and applications should be made by 31st March.

Details are available from http://www.shef.ac.uk/csc/css/. Enquiries to:

David Lerner
Chunmiao Zheng

Dear Colleagues,

In the frame of the 6th Hellenic Conference on Artificial Intelligence <http://www.setn2010.gr/>, a special session is organized titled: Artificial Intelligence and Environmental Informatics (http://sites.meng.auth.gr/EnvAI/), to be held in Athens, Greece, 4-7 May 2010. The main aim is to investigate and demonstrate the synergies and the results that may be obtained when applying AI methods and tools in the environmental sector. I invite you to visit the session’s web site for more information, and to consider submitting a paper. I believe that this may also be a good opportunity to meet and discuss possible research and academic collaborations in areas of common interest.

With warm regards,

Kostas Karatzas,
EnvAI Session Organizer

IDSIA, Istituto Dalle Molle di Studi sull’Intelligenza Artificiale,

a leading research institute in artificial intelligence research, affiliated with University of Lugano (USI) and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI)

is looking for:

a post-doc researcher (m/f)

to pursue research and development in the areas of semantic annotation, tagging and discovery systems and their evaluation for complex, environmental applications.

We look for a candidate (m/f) with analytical and diagnostic skills; ability to act decisively and to identify and resolve problems independently.

The successful candidate will work towards the development of innovative ideas and concepts related to semantic annotation and discovery systems. Candidates with strong commitment to research, excellent publication record, and good communication and presentation skills (in English) are encouraged to apply.

Candidates should have a PhD in any of the following areas: Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Operational Research, Mathematics, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, or Physical Sciences. They are also expected to have a solid background in programming languages, databases systems, intelligent systems and system modeling.

The ideal candidate will have research experience in any of the areas:  ontologies and the semantic web, distributed systems, cloud or grid computing, knowledge modeling, service oriented architectures or agent-based computing.

The position is  associated with the TaToo project, an EU-funded research project (FP7-IST). The position will be filled as soon as an adequate candidate will become available.

Gross salary will be approximately 72'000 CHF, depending on experience and qualifications.  Swiss taxes are from low to moderate. There are available traveling funds for project meetings and important conferences, in case of accepted papers.

IDSIA provides with an English-speaking working environment. Knowledge of Italian, German or French would be a valuable for the candidate, but is not required.

Applicants should submit as soon as possible:

1. Curriculum vitae

2. List of two references and their email addresses

3. Brief statement on how their research interests fit the topics above

Please send all documents preferably via email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or by mail to: Andrea Emilio Rizzoli, IDSIA, Galleria 2, 6928 Manno (Lugano), Switzerland.

Do NOT send large files; instead send URLs.

In the subject header, please mention your name and the keyword TaToo. For example, if your name is John Brown, use subject: TaToo  application: John Brown.