CoP ForestDSS News April 2017

06
Apr
04.06.2017 |
hvacik
Harald Vacik's picture

This is the April 2017 newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems sent to all registered members. We would like to update you on the recent developments in the CoP:

Opportunity to participate in DSS related conferences:

There are several conferences organized this year, which allow strengthening collaboration and outreaching by the DSS community. In the conferences the members of the CoP are actively engaged as session organizers or co-organizers of the conference, which allow also side meetings to be organized:

The ICDSST-2017 is organized by the  EWG-DSS – EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems from 29-31.05.2017 in Namur Belgium. The ICDSST-2017 on “Data, Information and Knowledge Visualisation in Decision Making” will study the role, the qualities, the models and methods offered by visualisation of data, information and knowledge in the process of decision and the mechanisms of decision support.  The special session ‘The use of DSS in forest resources management and policy analysis’ aims at easy to use decision support tools for the complex interactions in spatial and temporal contexts between society and forest resource management. For more information please visit ICDSST 2017 official website.
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The Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2017) will take place near Seattle, in Washington, US from August 27-31, 2017.  The 2017 SSAFR is going to be unique in a way as it will bring together two traditionally disconnected disciplines both working on forest decision support systems: the remote sensing/geospatial informatics community and operations researchers. The high number of submissions and keynotes will represent examples from the broad area of systems analysis models and techniques useful for analyzing problems associated with the management of forest resources. For more information please check out the website.
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The 125th IUFRO Anniversary Congress will take place in Freiburg, Germany 19th-22nd of September 2017. The session “Decision Support Approaches in Adaptive Forest Management” is jointly organised by IUFRO units 4.04.00, 4.04.06 and 4.03.03 and the CoP ForestDSS has received a high number of submissions as part of the All Division 4 Meeting. We would like to explore the different ways how adaptive forest management can be implemented and supported by DSS. Due to the high interest in the IUFRO congress only up to 2100 participants might be accepted, therefore we encourage the presenters to register for the congress by the "early-bird" deadline of 1 June 2017 at http://iufro2017.com/registration/.
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"The Green-Blue Nexus" conference oragnized in Halle, Germany from 24 - 29 September 2017 addresses the conflict between provisioning services (the "Green"), such as timber / biomass and forest by-products (food and fodder) and regulating services (the "Blue") (e.g., cleaning drinking water, flood and erosion regulation) in relation to other impacts on biodiversity and the supporting structures and key ecological processes that enable the supply of these services. You will learn right after the IUFRO congress how new types of data and methods help develop better models of landscape dynamics that support decision makers in identifying the best set of adaptation pathways to global changes. You can also enjoy a nice training course on landscape pattern analysis by Peter Vogt, EC. There are still options to submit session proposal and abstracts. Read more....

There are many more conferences scheduled for 2017 - you are able to track the latest call for abstracts and get to know about interesting conferences at the news and events page of the CoP.

Opportunity to participate summer schools:

There are several summer schools organized during the summer months, which have a special focus on the development and application of forest management tools and techniques. Take the opportunity to participate in the trainings:

  • You invited to participate to the workshop on Decision Making organised in Toulouse, Manufacture des Tabacs, Amphi MBIII, April 24th - 26th 2017. The program is organized around four thematic sessions: Tools for Group Decision Making, Multicriteria Decision Making under uncertainty, Computational Social Choice, Argued Decision.Read more...
  • The Toulouse e-Democracy Summer School (TeSS) is organized jointly with CIMI labex http://www.cimi.univ-toulouse.fr and Policy Analitycs GDR http://www.lamsade.dauphine.fr/gdr3720 from June 27th 2017 – July 4th 2017. Several topics ranging from Voting procedures, Group Decision Support Systems, Collaborative Tools, Negotiation, Argumentation and Deliberation will be covered. Applications are still possible. Read more...
  • An international summer school on Forest Planning and Management: Training in New Tools and Techniques organised by EFIATLANTIC and hosted by Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) will be held in Waterford, Ireland from 19 – 23rd June 2017. The focus of the summer school will be on providing background information, demonstrations and training in the use of the latest tools and techniques for assisting modern forestry professionals. Read more ....
  • The Summer school 'land-system science for analysing dynamic landscapes: data, tools and models’, will take place from August 27 to September 1, 2017 in Filzbach, Switzerland. Students will develop an integrated understanding of land system science and landscape assessment. Read more....
  • The training school ‘Modelling landscape invasion by non-native tress: challenges and applications’ will take place at CIBIO/InBIO (Research Centre in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources) at the Campus Agrário Vairão, Universidade do Porto, Portugal between September 25th – 29th 2017. The training school is organised and financed by COST Action FP1403 (NNEXT) 'Non-native tree species for European forests - Experiences, Risks and Opportunities'. Read more...

Call for papers in journals

The Journal of Software Engineering and Applications (JSEA, ISSN Online: 1945-3124), a peer-reviewed open-access journal, is seeking papers for the upcoming special issue on "Decision Support Systems". Researchers are invited to submit original research papers to this issue through the Paper Submission System. Submission Deadline is April 2017.
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The Journal Forests will publish a special issue "Decision Support Approaches in Adaptive Forest Management" which will cover selected Papers from the IUFRO 125th Anniversary Congress. For this Special Issue of Forests, we encourage original manuscripts from all fields, yet specifically those involving forest management decision support systems, approaches, and models, in order to promote and advance knowledge about decision-making processes used in adaptive and sustainable forest management planning. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2017.
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New publications and tools

Jason Papathanasiou, Nikolaos Ploskas and Isabelle Linden have recently published a new book on case studies of real world DSS applications. The book highlights best practices in each stage of a decision support system’s life cycle, from the initial requirements analysis and design phases to the final stages of the project. Read more...

As a result of several national and international research projects undergoing in these areas, the ForChange group has been developing several tools that aim to support forest management. The Forchange Tools website was created with the purpose of facilitating the access of all users to the existing tools allowing downloading its latest versions. Read more...

We have also updated the list of publications related to Forest DSS on the Community portal. Around 200 references are now listed, including the most recent publications from the field.

In case that you would like to share your activties and your DSS related projects with the community, please provide us with a short notice, so that we are able to include the information in the portal and the next newsletter. Please check out the website for further announcements via the news and events pages or follow the latest discussions at the community pages.