IAOA and
the Vespucci Initiative for the Advancement of Geographic
Information in Science is announcing
the 11th Annual Vespucci Institutes.
The
registration deadline for the Summer Institute is April
15, 2013.
http://vespucci.org/programme
June 3 to 7, 2013 in
Fiesole, Italy – "Ontologies
and models for integrated assessments of multiple-scale
processes"
One
of the grand challenges of our time is to understand and manage
the complex relationships between society and the physical
environment. To meet this challenge we need a new kind of
interdisciplinary science that considers the full ensemble of
processes and feedbacks for a wide range of biophysical and social
systems. The notion of “land function” is a new concept for
cross-sector integration and for representing complex system
dynamics. This new approach aims to provide a comprehensive,
consistent and harmonised analysis of the impacts and responses of
land functions to environmental and socio-economic changes using a
detailed, spatially disaggregated bottom-up approach consistent
with the Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response framework.
Whilst this framework is used in the environmental sciences, a
social-science approach suitable to model land function dynamics
and interactions from local to global scales is that of simulation
based modelling and in particular spatial micro-simulation. The
latter is conceptually very relevant to popular computer games
such as SimCity and the Sims and involves the merging of census
and survey data to simulate a population of individuals within
households (for different geographical units), whose
characteristics are as close to the real population as it is
possible to estimate. Spatial micro-simulation models can then be
used to answer questions pertaining to the geographical, as well
as the socio-economic impacts of government policies and to
generally perform what-if scenario analysis. When attempting to
link environmental and social models, key challenges include the
degree of tacit knowledge, varying assumptions, and different
conceptual and theoretical frameworks that create barriers and
misunderstandings in the dialogue. To overcome this, it is crucial
to formalize and communicate the description, and the assumptions,
of the models used. These descriptions and models must be based
upon robust specifications of notions like function, cause,
process, pathway, rate of change, or quality, as they apply to
entities in physical reality that are (in a certain way)
independent of the activity of human agents. Moreover, we need
descriptions and models of the interaction of humans with their
environments. For example, intentional agents (individually or as
groups) act upon the physical environment by causing certain
processes that change certain qualities. The Vespucci Institute
will therefore explore the theoretical basis, assumptions,
concepts, and components of the land function and spatial
micro-simulation models, and analyse how we can move towards
developing an ontology of land function and land function dynamics
and a collection of models that are tentatively consistent with
the logical constraints of this ontology.
Facilitators:
Dimitris Ballas (University of
Sheffield), Tom Bittner (SUNY-Buffalo), Max Craglia (JRC),
Werner Kuhn (University of Münster), Carlo Lavalle (JRC)
IAOA student members may apply for fee waivers and/or travel grants
by sending the following information
to Michael Gruninger (gruninger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
by April 15, 2013.
- a recent CV
- an application letter including
a) "a statement of why I want to attend the summer school and what I hope to get out of it"
b) "the description of specific travel support needed"