QUEST is now an NSF Research Coordination Network

As of March 2013, Quantifying Uncertainty in Ecosystem Studies (QUEST) is supported by the National Science Foundation as a Research Coordination Network.  The five-year grant will allow the QUEST network to better support activities that advance the application of uncertainty analysis in ecosystem studies.  Efforts will focus on outreach and research on quantifying uncertainty in five topic areas important to ecosystem studies: atmospheric deposition, stream water export, biomass, soils, and ecosystem budgets.

Outreach will target ecosystem scientists through workshops at professional meetings and periodic webinars, each addressing issues in uncertainty in one of the five topic areas listed above.  QUEST has a website at http://www.quantifyinguncertainty.org, which already includes sample code, links to papers, and news announcements.  We will be developing discussion boards, wikis, and tutorials.

QUEST will support efforts to clarify approaches to uncertainty analysis, illustrate its use in evaluating monitoring designs, and address issues of detecting change over time.  QUEST will help to identify problems to be addressed by focus groups in specific topic areas.   The focus groups will produce QUEST funded open-access publications to be made available on the website.  We are also assembling an advisory board of statisticians who will assist in education and collaborate on research projects.

Our goal in the first year is to get the word out and recruit participants.  Please feel free to pass on this announcement, and please send us ideas for other avenues for outreach.

The QUEST Steering Committee:

Ruth Yanai (Coordinator), John Campbell (Information Management), Mark Green (Statistical Coordinator), Chris Daly (Precipitation), Rick Hooper (Streamflow), Jim Clark (Vegetation), Dan Richter (Soils), and Mark Harmon (Ecosystem Budgets)

Email us at QUEST <quantifyinguncertainty@gmail.com> to join our mailing list.