Quantifying, predicting, and exploiting uncertainties in marine environments

Following the scientific, technical, and field trial initiatives ongoing since the Maritime Rapid Environmental Assessment (MREA) conferences in 2003, 2004, and 2007, the MREA10 conference provided a timely opportunity to review the progress on various aspects of MREA, with a particular emphasis on marine environmental uncertainty management. A key objective of the conference was to review the present state of the art in quantifying, predicting, and exploiting marine environmental uncertainties. The integration of emerging environmental monitoring and modeling techniques into data assimilation streams and their subsequent exploitation at an operational level involves a complex chain of nonlinear uncertainty transfers, including human factors. Accordingly, the themes for the MREA10 conference were selected to develop a better understanding of uncertainty, from its inception in the properties being measured and instrumentation employed to its eventual impact in the applications that rely upon environmental information. Contributions from the scientific community were encouraged on all aspects of environmental uncertainties: their quantification, prediction, understanding, and exploitation. Contributions from operational communities, the consumers of environmental information who have to cope with uncertainty, were also encouraged. All temporal and spatial scales were relevant: tactical, operational, and strategic, including uncertainty studies for topics with long-term implications. Manuscripts reporting new technical and theoretical developments in MREA, but acknowledging effects of uncertainties to be accounted for in future research, were also included. The response was excellent with 87 oral presentations (11 of which were invited keynote speakers) and 24 poster presentations during the conference. A subset of these presentations was submitted to this topical issue, and 22 manuscripts were published by Ocean Dynamics. The following section includes an overview of the conference themes and summary of the published manuscripts.United States. Office of Naval Research (grant N00014-08-1-0586 (QPE))United States. Office of Naval Research (grant N00014-08-1-1097 (ONR6.1))United States. Office of Naval Research (grant N00014-08-1-0680 (PLUS-SEAS)

Spatial Modelling of Within-Field Weed Populations - a Review

Concerns around herbicide resistance, human risk, and the environmental impacts of current weed control strategies have led to an increasing demand for alternative weed management methods. Many new weed management strategies are under development; however, the poor availability of accurate weed maps, and a lack of confidence in the outcomes of alternative weed management strategies, has hindered their adoption. Developments in field sampling and processing, combined with spatial modelling, can support the implementation and assessment of new and more integrated weed management strategies. Our review focuses on the biological and mathematical aspects of assembling within-field weed models. We describe both static and spatio-temporal models of within-field weed distributions (including both cellular automata (CA) and non-CA models), discussing issues surrounding the spatial processes of weed dispersal and competition and the environmental and anthropogenic processes that affect weed spatial and spatio-temporal distributions. We also examine issues surrounding model uncertainty. By reviewing the current state-of-the-art in both static and temporally dynamic weed spatial modelling we highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses of current techniques, together with current and emerging areas of interest for the application of spatial models, including targeted weed treatments, economic analysis, herbicide resistance and integrated weed management, the dispersal of biocontrol agents, and invasive weed species

Tracing catchment fine sediment sources using the new SIFT (SedIment Fingerprinting Tool) open source software

The mitigation of diffuse sediment pollution requires reliable provenance information so that measures can be targeted. Sediment source fingerprinting represents one approach for supporting these needs, but recent methodological developments have resulted in an increasing complexity of data processing methods rendering the approach less accessible to non-specialists. A comprehensive new software programme (SIFT; SedIment Fingerprinting Tool) has therefore been developed which guides the user through critical data analysis decisions and automates all calculations. Multiple source group configurations and composite fingerprints are identified and tested using multiple methods of uncertainty analysis. This aims to explore the sediment provenance information provided by the tracers more comprehensively than a single model, and allows for model configurations with high uncertainties to be rejected. This paper provides an overview of its application to an agricultural catchment in the UK to determine if the approach used can provide a reduction in uncertainty and increase in precision. Five source group classifications were used; three formed using a k-means cluster analysis containing 2, 3 and 4 clusters, and two a-priori groups based upon catchment geology. Three different composite fingerprints were used for each classification and bi-plots, range tests, tracer variability ratios and virtual mixtures tested the reliability of each model configuration. Some model configurations performed poorly when apportioning the composition of virtual mixtures, and different model configurations could produce different sediment provenance results despite using composite fingerprints able to discriminate robustly between the source groups. Despite this uncertainty, dominant sediment sources were identified, and those in close proximity to each sediment sampling location were found to be of greatest importance. This new software, by integrating recent methodological developments in tracer data processing, guides users through key steps. Critically, by applying multiple model configurations and uncertainty assessment, it delivers more robust solutions for informing catchment management of the sediment problem than many previously used approaches

Addressing Risk Challenges in a Changing Financial Environment:the Need for Greater Accountability in Financial Regulation and Risk Management

The need for continuous monitoring and regulation is particularly attributed to, and justified by, the inevitable presence of risks and uncertainty – both in terms of certain externalities and indeterminacies which are capable of being reasonably quantified and those which are not. Amongst other goals, this paper aims to address complexities and challenges faced by regulators in identifying and assessing risk, problems arising from different perceptions of risk, and solutions aimed at countering problems of risk regulation. It will approach these issues through an assessment of explanations put forward to justify the growing importance of risks, well known risk theories such as cultural theory, risk society theory and governmentality theory. “Socio cultural” explanations which relate to how risk is increasingly becoming embedded in organisations and institutions will also be considered as part of those factors attributable to why the financial environment has become transformed to the state in which it currently exists. A consideration of regulatory developments which have contributed to a change in the way financial regulation is carried out, as well as developments which have contributed to the de formalisation of rules and a corresponding “loss of certainty”, will also constitute focal points of the paper. To what extent are risks capable of being quantified? Who is able to assist with such quantification – and why has it become necessary to introduce other regulatory actors and greater measures aimed at fostering corporate governance and accountability into the regulatory process? These questions constitute some of the issues which this paper aims to address

Regulating nanotechnologies: risk, uncertainty and the global governance gap

This article builds on research for a two-year project on nanotechnology regulation in the US and Europe (2008–09), which was funded by the European Commission. We are grateful to our collaborators in this project, at the London School of Economics, Chatham House, Environmental Law Institute and Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, and especially Linda Breggin, Jay Pendergrass and Read Porter. We also received helpful suggestions from three anonymous reviewers and would like to thank them for their advice. Any remaining errors are our own. Nanosciences and nanotechnologies are set to transform the global industrial landscape, but the debate on how to regulate environmental, health and safety risks is lagging behind technological innovation. Current regulatory efforts are primarily focused on the national and regional level, while the international dimensions of nanotechnology governance are still poorly understood and rarely feature on the international agenda. However, with the ongoing globalization of nanosciences and the rapid expansion of international trade in nanomaterials, demand for international coordination and harmonization of regulatory approaches is set to increase. Yet, uncertainty about nanotechnology risk poses a profound dilemma for regulators and policy-makers. Uncertainty both creates demand for and stands in the way of greater international cooperation and harmonization of regulatory approaches. This article reviews the emerging debate on nanotechnology risk and regulatory approaches, investigates the current state of international cooperation and outlines the critical contribution that a global governance approach can make to the safe development of nanotechnologie

Models of everywhere revisited: a technological perspective

The concept ‘models of everywhere’ was first introduced in the mid 2000s as a means of reasoning about the environmental science of a place, changing the nature of the underlying modelling process, from one in which general model structures are used to one in which modelling becomes a learning process about specific places, in particular capturing the idiosyncrasies of that place. At one level, this is a straightforward concept, but at another it is a rich multi-dimensional conceptual framework involving the following key dimensions: models of everywhere, models of everything and models at all times, being constantly re-evaluated against the most current evidence. This is a compelling approach with the potential to deal with epistemic uncertainties and nonlinearities. However, the approach has, as yet, not been fully utilised or explored. This paper examines the concept of models of everywhere in the light of recent advances in technology. The paper argues that, when first proposed, technology was a limiting factor but now, with advances in areas such as Internet of Things, cloud computing and data analytics, many of the barriers have been alleviated. Consequently, it is timely to look again at the concept of models of everywhere in practical conditions as part of a trans-disciplinary effort to tackle the remaining research questions. The paper concludes by identifying the key elements of a research agenda that should underpin such experimentation and deployment

Financial Regulation and Risk Management:Addressing Risk Challenges in a Changing Financial Environment

Amongst other goals, this paper aims to address complexities and challenges faced by regulators in identifying and assessing risk, problems arising from different perceptions of risk, and solutions aimed at countering problems of risk regulation. It will approach these issues through an assessment of explanations put forward to justify the growing importance of risks, well known risk theories such as cultural theory, risk society theory and governmentality theory. In addressing the problems posed as a result of the difficulty in quantifying risks, it will consider means whereby risks can be quantified reasonably without the consequential effects which result from the dual nature of risk, that is, risks emanating from the management of institutional risks. “Socio cultural” explanations which relate to how risk is increasingly becoming embedded in organisations and institutions will also be considered as part of those factors attributable to why the financial environment has become transformed to the state in which it currently exists. A consideration of regulatory developments which have contributed to a change in the way financial regulation is carried out, an illustration of how the financial industry and the approach to financial regulation have been transformed by the rapid growth of the hedge funds industry, will also constitute focal points of the paper

DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT AND ADVANCEMENT OF MULTI-OBJECTIVE RESERVOIR CONTROL UNDER UNCERTAINTY

This dissertation contributes to the assessment of new scientific developments for multi-objective decision support to improve multi-purpose river basin management. The main insights of this work highlight opportunities to improve modeling of complex multi-purpose water reservoir systems and opportunities to flexibly incorporate emerging demands and hydro-climatic uncertainty. Additionally, algorithm diagnostics contributed in this work enable the water resources field to better capitalize on the rapid growth in computational power. This opens new opportunities to increase the scope of the problems that can be solved and contribute to the robustness and sustainability of water systems management worldwide. This dissertation focuses on a multi-purpose reservoir system that captures the contextual and mathematical difficulties confronted in a broad range of global multi-purpose systems challenged by multiple competing demands and uncertainty. The first study demonstrates that advances in state of the art multiobjective evolutionary optimization enables to reliably and effectively find control policies that balance conflicting tradeoffs for multi-purpose reservoir control. Multiobjective evolutionary optimization techniques coupled with direct policy search can reliably and flexibly find suitable control policies that adapt to multi-sectorial water needs and to hydro-climatic uncertainty. The second study demonstrates the benefits of cooperative parallel MOEA architectures to reliably and effectively find many objective control policies when the system is subject to uncertainty and computational constraints. The more advanced cooperative, co-evolutionary parallel search expands the scope of problem difficulty that can be reliably addressed while facilitating the discovery of high quality approximations for optimal river basin tradeoffs. The insights from this chapter should enable water resources analysts to devote computational efforts towards representing reservoir systems more accurately by capturing uncertainty and multiple demands when properly using parallel coordinated search. The third study extended multi- purpose reservoir control to better capture flood protection. A risk-averse formulation contributed to the discovery of control policies that improve operations during hydrologic extremes. Overall this dissertation has carefully evaluated and advanced the Evolutionary Multiobjective Direct Policy Search (EMODPS) framework to support multi-objective and robust management of conflicting demands in complex reservoir systems

On the right track? : evaluation as a tool to guide spatial transitions

Spatial developments are becoming more and more non-linear, dynamic and complex with a wide range of possible actors. The awareness of uncertainty in spatial planning is growing and therefore, projects need to integrate a high level of flexibility. But at the same time, a growing demand for taking more informed and well-argued decisions is noticeable. Predictions out of the ‘best estimated model’ are no longer credible and no longer accepted, because they are too fragile and uncertain. How can we keep these long-lasting, multi-actor projects in permanent transition on the right track? This article presents an evaluation methodology that goes beyond the traditional, rational evaluation attitudes with a low level of flexibility being too linear to match the current spatial developments. There is a need for more interrelated, alert and flexible means of evaluation, co-evolving with the processes and current dynamics in spatial planning. Therefore, different evaluation approaches are introduced, depending on the specific interdependencies of the object of evaluation and its context. Subsequently, the theoretical framework is translated towards a more practical level. A case study conducted in Flanders illustrates the current spatial developments and a possible evaluation approach, incorporated from the beginning of the process, to guide this kind of projects