uncertaintly analysis in evaluating Long-Term Monitoring efforts, in print and open access

Read More:  Levine, C.R., R.D. Yanai, G.G. Lampman, D.A. Burns, C.T. Driscoll, G.B. Lawrence, J.A. Lynch, and N. Schoch. 2014.  Evaluating the efficiency of environmental monitoring programs. Ecological Indicators.   39: 94 – 101.  DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2013.12.010 PDF  | HTMLIn Brief....

• Uncertainty analyses can be used to improve the efficiency of environmental monitoring.
• Evaluating monitoring data allows for detection of gaps and redundancies in monitoring programs.
• Authors illustrate four methods of data analysis appropriate to four types of monitoring designs.
• Authors demonstrate methods for optimizing efficiency and effectiveness of monitoring programs.

Call for Abstracts on Uncertainty: SAF and CIF Joint Meeting

This year the Society of American Foresters (SAF) and the Canadian Institute of Forestry (CIF) will hold their joint annual meeting in conjunction with the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) in Salt Lake City, UT. Two of the presentation themes for the conference are “embracing, and learning from, uncertainty” and “an engineering take on uncertainty: lessons for the forestry profession.” Descriptions of these two tracks are available here. This is an excellent opportunity for those working in forest systems to share their knowledge of uncertainty with a diverse group of scientists and managers

The SAF/CIF conference runs from October 8 – 11, and the deadline for abstract submissions is March 9. The IUFRO conference runs October 5-11; abstract submissions for these sessions are already closed. At IUFRO, QUEST will host a sub-plenary session, two technical sessions, many posters, and an evening discussion. Participants registered for either conference will be admitted to all sessions from October 9-11.

Uncertainty will be prominently featured at the largest forestry meeting of the decade!

Workshop: “Error propagation for carbon estimation”

December 4-6, 2013, Camino Real Aeropuerto Hotel, Mexico City.  

One objective of the workshop is to show and discuss the methodologies for the estimation of uncertainty and error propagation in different components that influence the estimation of emissions and removals of greenhouse gases in the forest sector. Also, it aims to share the experience of national and international experts on uncertainty and contextualize it within the importance that these methods have in creating national reports for the estimation of carbon stocks and their changes.

The workshop will be divided into five main sessions. The first will address errors in estimates of biomass inherent in allometric models. The second will highlight recent research concerning the estimation of uncertainties associated with Emission Factors (within a Tier 2 reporting framework). This second block will cover the calculation of uncertainties associated with measurement errors in forest inventories of important variables for the estimation of carbon. In addition, errors due to sample design and stratification schemes to minimize uncertainties from forest inventories will be reviewed.

The third session will explore issues related to the estimation of uncertainties for activity data. It will cover validation of land cover maps and land cover changes, estimation of uncertainties of the area estimates for activity data and methodologies for the estimation of uncertainties in carbon maps.

In the fourth session, participants will discuss error propagation of uncertainties for emission factors and activity data within a Tier 2 reporting framework. Finally, the fifth session will discuss how to estimate uncertainties in carbon dynamics models for a Tier 3 approach and discuss possible approaches for the estimation of uncertainties in an integrated Tier 2 and 3 approach.

Official website 

Sponsoring Organizations: Mexican National Forestry Commission, United Nations Development Programme, Government of Norway, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Quantifying Uncertainty at IUFRO 2014

IUFRO's Congress Scientific Committee invites abstract submissions for the 2014 IUFRO World Congress: Sustaining Forests, Sustaining People, The Rose of Research, to be held October 5-11, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

Please consider submitting abstracts to session #58 Quantifying Uncertainty in Forest Measurements and Models: Approaches and Applications, offered under the Congress Theme Forests and Climate Change, to share approaches to analyzing uncertainty in forest measurements and give examples of applications of uncertainty in above- and belowground estimates of forest biomass, carbon, and nutrient pools and fluxes, ans well as other ecosystem attributes. Oral and poster presentations will be selected from the submitted abstracts.

QUEST will also have a sub-plenary session, The Importance of Quantifying Uncertainty in Managing Forests. Invited presenters will describe sources of uncertainty in estimates of forest carbon and nutrient pools and fluxes, including natural spatial and temporal variation, measurement error, model uncertainty, and model selection, and address how these uncertainties can guide monitoring designs and affect management and policy decision.

The Sub-Plenary and the Technical Session are being organized by Ruth Yanai, SUNY-ESF, USA; George Gertner, University of Illinois, USA; David Paré, Canadian Forest Service; Peter Clinton, Scion, New Zealand; and Bogdan Strimbu, Louisiana Tech University, USA.

English language abstracts (http://iufro2014.com/scientific-program/abstract-submissions) are due before the site closes October 15; abstracts may also be submitted in Spanish or French, but should be submitted by 15 September, to allow sufficient time for translation prior to review by session coordinators and the Congress Scientific Committee. Also note that all presenting authors (oral or poster presentations) must register for the Congress by April 30, 2014 – failure to do so will result in the presentation’s deletion from both the program and the abstracts volume of The International Forestry Review.

Please join us in Salt Lake City in October 2014! For more information, visit http://iufro2014.com/

News Flash: QUEST presentation in France

Ruth Yanai presented a talk at the final meeting of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action FP0803: 14 May 2013,  Bordeaux,  France.  The subject of the COST Action was Belowground Carbon Turnover in European forests.  The talk gives an overview of Quantifying Uncertainty in Ecosystem Studies, with attention to precipitation inputs, streamwater outputs, biomass accumulation, and change in soil stores, with examples of applications of uncertainty analysis to evaluating monitoring intensity, filling gaps with minimal uncertainty, identifying the greatest sources of uncertainty, and determining detectable differences.

Slides are available here.

Collaborators needed: data gaps in precipitation and streamflow

All long term datsets contain missing or unusable data (gaps).  While many of these gaps are inevitable, it is not possible to simply omit missing values when calculating solute fluxes from precipitation or streamflow.  The uncertainty associated with gap-filling estimates is not commonly reported or propagated into these  flux estimates.  We hope to characterize the causes of these gaps across sites for both volume and solute chemistry in long-term precipitation and streamflow datasets.  To quantify the uncertainty associate with different gap-filling methods, we will apply them to a series of "fake gaps," and compare the estimates with measured values.

 Weather events can cause gaps in long-term datasets.  (D. Buso)

To do this we need datasets!  We're interested in hearing form potential co-authors with streamflow and precipitation datasets to discuss the frequency and causes of gaps, and how they fill them.  We are especially in need of solute concentration datasets.  We're also interested in hearing from statistically minded individuals with new ideas on how to quantify the uncertainty associated with these gaps.

Please contact Craig See at crsee@syr.edu for more information.