Dr. John Bolte, Department of Bioresource Engineering, Oregon State University "Modeling Biocomplexity - Actors, Landscapes and Alternative Futures"
Increasingly, models (and modelers) are being asked to address the interactions between human influences, ecological processes, and landscape dynamics that impact many diverse aspects of managing complex coupled human and natural systems. These systems may be profoundly influenced by human decisions at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and the limitations of traditional process-level ecosystems modeling approaches for representing the richness of factors shaping landscape dynamics in these coupled systems has resulted in the need for new analysis approaches. The term "biocomplexity" has emerged as a descriptor of the rich patterns of interactions and behaviors in human and natural systems, and the challenges of analyzing biocomplex behavior is resulting in a convergence of approaches leading to new ways of understanding these systems. Important questions related to system vulnerability and resilience, adaptation, feedback processing, cycling, nonlinearities and other complex behaviors are being addressed using models employing new representational approaches to analysis. An emerging application area is alternative futures analyses, the study of how complex coupled human/natural systems dynamically respond to varying management strategies and driving forces. This methodology is increasingly being used to inform decision makers about the implications of policy alternatives related to land and water management, expressed in terms related to human valuations of the landscape. The complexity inherent in these systems challenges the modeling community to provide tools that capture sufficiently the richness of human and ecosystem processes and interactions in ways that are computationally tractable and understandable. We will examine one such tool, Evoland, which uses an actor-based approach to conduct alternative futures analyses in the Willamette Basin, Oregon.
Second International Conference on Discrete Global Grids, Ashland, OR October 27-October 29 : Conference addresses approaches to and challenges of capturing global data into discrete grid systems. Matt will be going and Ray may go.
ESRI is offering a live seminar on scripting in ArcGIS 9.0 with Python. This will be archived after the live session so people can take it whenever they have time. Kuiipo mentioned that some OSU Geosciences folks were taking a course on Python scripting at Portland State University. Theresa noted that a number of employees from the Oregon Department of Revenue were trying to get together a group so that ESRI would come down and train them at their facility. Also, Yang mentioned starting a Python group among the SDMG members for those who were interested.
Matt mentioned a desire to learn more about this new extension in ArcGIS. Scott Valentine (Theresa's husband) had been to a training about this and Theresa would try to get more information.
Ken shared that he was willing to present a Tips and Tricks session about using color in maps to account for color blindness. He was going to send around a copy of a manual(?) that he had used.
Theresa noted that 2m color DOQs in selected areas of Washington and Oregon were available. She is working with Helpdesk to get these burned onto a set of CDs so that she can return the originals.
Theresa generally has a feeling of being drowned in CDs. It was suggested that the 3rd floor FSL library might be an option for storage of these CDs. There is also a larger issue of data which are now housed on the /data/fordata drive (T:\GIS). With the new disk storage model, we may be charged for disk usage and backup costs, although it wasn't entirely clear if this was the case. There was general agreement that we need to be looking for a more far reaching solution and some suggestions included housing these data at the OSU library (using a huge disk called a SAN), using ArcSDE as a management tool to better organize the data, and writing a proposal to create a new position in the College of Forestry whose responsibility would be data management and maintenance. It was suggested to have a meeting with Lisa Ganio, Terralyn and Kathy Howell to start discussing options.
There will be over 200 5th graders attending this year's GIS Day. Theresa, Ken and John were the COF organizers this year and worked with Keldah Hedstrom and Dawn Wright from Geosciences. They are still looking for volunteers for logistical aspects of the day, including setting up a hospitality room for the volunteers and ordering and setting up poster boards. Dawn Wright will be giving the keynote address and the topic will be "Mapping the Depths of the Ocean with GIS"
We will meet on November 18 (day after GIS Day) to debrief on what went well and what went wrong. Our December meeting is scheduled for the 16th with Ray bringing treats and John taking notes.