This is the October 2016 newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems sent to all registered members. We would like to update you on the recent developments in the CoP:
Opportunity to participate in DSS related conferences:
There are several conferences organized next year, which allow strengthening collaboration and outreaching by the DSS community. In the conferences the members of the CoP are actively engaged as session organizers or co-organizers of the conference, which allow also side meetings to be organized:
The ICDSST-2017 is organized by the EWG-DSS – EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems and sponsored by EURO – the Association of European Operational Research Societies. The ICDSST-2017 on “Data, Information and Knowledge Visualisation in Decision Making” will study the role, the qualities, the models and methods offered by visualisation of data, information and knowledge in the process of decision and the mechanisms of decision support. The special session ‘The use of DSS in forest resources management and policy analysis’ aims at easy to use decision support tools for the complex interactions in spatial and temporal contexts between society and forest resource management. The deadline for full paper submission to ICDSST 2017 is 30 November 2016, in order for your submission to be considered for publication by Springer in the series of Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing (LNBIP). For detailed information about submissions, please visit the ICDSST 2017 official website: https://icdsst2017.wordpress.com/submissions/ Read more …
The 125thIUFRO Anniversary Congress will take place in Freiburg, Germany 19th-22nd of September 2017. On behalf of the Congress Scientific Committee we invite you to submit your abstract for the session “Decision Support Approaches in Adaptive Forest Management”, which is organised by IUFRO units 4.04.00, 4.04.06 and 4.03.03 and the CoP ForestDSS. The session 61 "Decision Support Approaches in Adaptive Forest Management" is part of the All Division 4 Meeting. We would like to explore the different ways how adaptive forest management can be implemented and supported by DSS. The organizers would like to invite presenters (oral and poster) from different thematic areas including harvest scheduling methods, participatory forest management, risk resilient forest management and forest decision support systems. Deadline for Submissions is 30 November 2016. Read more…
The Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2017) will take place near Seattle, in Washington, US from August 27-31, 2017. The 2017 SSAFR is going to be unique in a way as it will bring together two traditionally disconnected disciplines both working on forest decision support systems: the remote sensing/geospatial informatics community and operations researchers. Abstract submissions are now being accepted for SSAFR 2017. The symposium aims to have presentations representing a broad area of systems analysis models and techniques useful for analyzing problems associated with the management of forest resources. For more information please check out http://depts.washington.edu/ssafr17/abstract-submission/Deadline for Submissions is 10 January 2017 Read more…
There are many more conferences scheduled for 2016/2017 - you are able to track the latest call for abstracts and get to know about interesting conferences at the news and events page of the CoP.
Call for papers in journals
The Journal of Forest Policy and Economics (FORPOL) is seeking papers for the special issue "Models and tools for integrated forest policy analysis" It aims at improving understanding and capacities in the use of forestry decision support tools for integrated policy analysis. Submission Deadline is 30th of October, 2016. Read more…
The Journal of Software Engineering and Applications (JSEA, ISSN Online: 1945-3124), a peer-reviewed open-access journal, is seeking papers for the upcoming special issue on "Decision Support Systems". Researchers are invited to submit original research papers to this issue through the Paper Submission System. Submission Deadline is January 18th, 2017. Read more…
The Journal Sustainability will comprise a selection of papers that present recent approaches and tools for addressing the sustainability of forest management scheduling. It aims at reporting research focusing on Decision support systems as platforms for the transfer of technology and knowledge of forest ecosystems in a way that is understandable to everyone, thus addressing participatory planning concerns. For more information please check out http://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/forest_ecosystem_management. Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2016. Read more....
New members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all: Hector Tuy from Universidad Rafael Landívar (Guatemala), Miguel Segur from CESEFOR Foundation (Spain), Giovanni Preto from Padua (Italy), Milena Lakicevic from University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Agriculture (Serbia), Brady Mattsson from University of Natural Resources & Life Sciences, Vienna (Austria) among many others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
In case that you would like to share your activties and your DSS related projects with the community, please provide us with a short notice, so that we are able to include the information in the portal and the next newsletter. Please check out the website for further announcements via the (news and events pages) or follow the latest discussions at the (community pages).
Since 2002 the EURO-WG on Decision Support Systems publishes a newsletter, edited by the EWG-DSS Coordination Board each year.
The Communications of the Association of European Operational Research Societies – EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems, Nr.14 – Year 2015/2016 is now online available.
An overview about the activities, publications and events can be found here:
This is the May 2015 newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems sent to all registered members. We would like to update you on the recent developments in the CoP:
Conferences and call for papers:
The seminar “Models and decision support tools for integrated forest policy development under global change’ took place in February 18, 2016 in Lisbon, Portugal. It was organized in the framework of the project ‘SuFoRun’ supported by a Marie Skodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange. SuFoRun focuses on forestry and climate change interactions, including the development of adaptive forest management tools. Read more...
There are several conferences organized this year, which allow strengthening collaboration and outreaching by the DSS community. In most of the conferences the members of the CoP are actively engaged:
The ICDSST 2016 will be organized by the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS) in co-operation with University of Plymouth, UK, during 23-25 May 2016. The main purpose of the International Conference on Decision Support System Technology (ICDSST 2016), with its main theme on “Decision Support Systems Addressing Societal Challenges”, is to attract researchers, developers and specialists in the related areas of decision making, including its methodologies and technologies, as well as application oriented practitioners directed to the implementation of solutions for societal challenges. Jose Borges, Jan Kašpar and Harald Vacik are organizing the session "'The use of DSS in forest resources management and policy analysis" as part of the ICDSST 2016 conference. Read more …
You are also invited to take part in the 28th European Conference on Operational Research (EURO XXVIII) at Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland. The EURO 2016 Conference will take place from July 3-6, 2016. The Program and Organizing Committees chaired by Daniele Vigo and Joanna Jzefowska, are preparing a high quality scientific program and an exciting social program for the Conference. The EURO XXVIII Conference will be an excellent opportunity for the OR community to get together again in a pleasant atmosphere. Read more …
Please consider participating in the 8th International Congress on Environmental Modelling & Software (iEMSs 2016) Toulouse, France from 10-14 July 2016. The theme for the conference is "Supporting Sustainable Futures"and a lot of exciting new developments and tools for supporting our future are expected. Read more …
The final conference of the COST Action ORCHESTRA “Bioeconomy and ecosystem services, synergy or conflict? Horizontal and vertical policy analysis, modelling and orchestration in practice” will take place from 5-6 September 2016, in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium and will focus on the interface between bioeconomy and ecosystem services. ORCHESTRA aims at supporting the coherence of forest-related policy targets and efficiency of policy measures. The call for abstracts is still open and invites contributions about models that support the selection of policy targets or could be orchestrated to support the policy decisions related to bioeconomy and ecosystem services. Read more ...
There are many more conferences scheduled for 2016 - you are able to track the latest call for papers and get to know about interesting conferences at the news and events page of the CoP.
New DSS developments
Forest Research has been developing a new version of its decision support platform using a suite of open source geospatial web technologies to support a broad range of users across the forestry sector. This was particularly important with Ecological Site Classification (ESC), a Forest Research decision support tool that advises on tree species choice according to climatic and edaphic(soil) variables. More information can be found here.
The Terrestrial Condition Assessment (TCA) of the National Forest System (NFS, USDA Forest Service) is using the Ecosystem Management Decision Support (EMDS) system to assess effects of uncharacteristic stressors and disturbance agents, with an emphasis on identifying restoration opportunities at national and regional scales. EMDS is a spatial decision support system for landscape analysis and planning. More information can be found here.
The Heureka system developed at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) that allows the user to perform a large amount of different analysis and to create forest management plans (see http://www.forestdss.org/wiki/index.php?title=Heureka and http://www.slu.se/heureka) has some updates. The system can perform short and long term projections of timber, economy, environmental conservation, recreation and carbon sequestration. It is used by all larger forest companies in Sweden (~40 % of productive forest land) and by many mid and small sized forest owners. More information can be found here
Call for project proposals
Several calls are currently open for developing a joint application in the field of decision support. Here are listed three topics that might be of interest to initialize collaboration
The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. you might have an interest to check the list of publications. For instance there was the updated and expanded second edition of the book "Decision Support for Forest Management" edited by Kangas, A., Kurttila, M., Hujala, T., Eyvindson, K., Kangas, J. published in the Springer Series Managing Forest Ecosystems which adds the most recent advances in participatory planning approaches and methods, giving special emphasis to decision support tools usable under uncertainty.
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all: Ronju Ahammad from Charles Darwin Institute (RIEL) (Australia), Bahman Foumani from the University of Guilan, Faculty of Natural Resources, Forestry Department (Iran), Manoj Kumar from the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun (India) İnci ÇAĞLAYAN from the Faculty of Forestry at the Istanbul University (Turkey), Eduard Hildt from the Faculty of Forestry at the National University of Misiones (Argentinia), Dimitri Justeau from the Institut Agronomique in Néo-Calédonien among many others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
In case that you would like to share your activties and your DSS related projects with the community, please provide us with a short notice, so that we are able to include the information in the portal and the next newsletter. Please check out the website for further announcements via the (news and events pages) or follow the latest discussions at the (community pages).
This is the December 2015 newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems:
Conferences and Call for papers
There are several conferences organized next year, which allow to strengthen collaboration and outreach by the DSS community. In some of the conferences the members of the CoP are actively engaged in organizing sessions and welcome submission of abstracts.
The ICDSST 2016 will be organized by the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS) in co-operation with University of Plymouth, UK, during the period of 23-25 May 2016. The conference will be hosted by the Plymouth Graduate School of Management & Plymouth Business School, Faculty of Business. The main purpose of the EWG-DSS 2016 International Conference on Decision Support System Technology (ICDSST 2016), with its main theme on “Decision Support Systems Addressing Societal Challenges”, is to attract researchers, developers and specialists in the related areas of decision making, including its methodologies and technologies, as well as application oriented practitioners directed to the implementation of solutions for societal challenges. More information on the call for papers can be found online: https://icdsst2016.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/icdsst-2016/ . Jose Borges, Jan Kašpar and Harald Vacik are organizing the session "'The use of DSS in forest resources management and policy analysis" as part of the ICDSST 2016 conference. The call for abstracts can be found online. We welcome abstracts from the CoP members - please send your proposal to Jan Kašpar (kasparj@fld.czu.cz).
The annual meeting of the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) brings together Operational Research academics from Canada and abroad. The next Annual CORS conference will take place from May 30 - June 1, 2016 inCanada's oldest national park, Banff. Within the conference, the Forestry Special Interest Group (FSIG) is organizing a cluster focused on OR applications in Forestry, and members of the CoP are invited to join the group. The conference website and call for papers is available at: http://www.haskayne.ucalgary.ca/cors2016/ .
You are invited to take part in the 28th European Conference on Operational Research (EURO XXVIII) at Poznan University of Technology, Poznan, Poland. The EURO 2016 Conference will take place from July 3-6, 2016. The Program and Organizing Committees chaired by Daniele Vigo and Joanna Jzefowska, are preparing a high quality scientific program and an exciting social program for the Conference. The EURO XXVIII Conference will be an excellent opportunity for the OR community to get together again in a pleasant atmosphere.The conference website and call for papers is available at: http://www.euro2016.poznan.pl/)
Please consider submitting your environmental modeling and software work for presentation at the 8th International Congress on Environmental Modelling & Software (iEMSs 2016) Toulouse, FRANCE - 10-14 July 2016. The theme for the conference is "Supporting Sustainable Futures" and a lot of exciting new developments and tools for supporting our future are expected. To submit your abstract or paper now, please visit the conference web site: http://www.iemss.org/sites/iemss2016/
There are many more conferences scheduled for 2016 - you are able to track the latest call for papers and get to know about interesting conferences at the news and events page of the CoP.
New members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all: Marco Vieira Marto and Brigite Botequim from Forest Research Centre (CEF), School of Agriculture (ISA), University of Lisbon (Portugal), Broz Diego from theNational Scientific and Technical Research Council (Argentina) and Kevin Vogler from the Oregon State University (United States), among many others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
New release of EMDS
The PNW Station (USDA Forest Service) and EMDS Consortium announces the release of the Ecosystem Management Decision Support system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_Management_Decision_Support) version 5 on a platform-independent open-source GIS product. With this release, EMDS can now be run on Windows 7 and 8, Mac OS 10, and Linux operating systems. In addition, a streamed version of this latest version enables EMDS to run on iPads and Android tablets. Access to all MapWindows versions is available from Mountain View Business Group at http://emds.mountain-viewgroup.com/
Develop a mobile application to improve understanding of forests
In the context of the release of FAO’s Global Forest Resources Assessments 2015 (FRA), FAO is launching the "25 Years of forest change: Global Forest Resources Assessment 2015 app competition". Participants are invited to come up with mobile applications that can help better manage our forest resources and improve understanding of forests worldwide. The app should be based on the FRA 2015 dataset, now available for free download and use on the Forest Land Use Data Explorer (FLUDE), the online portal that allows data analysis of FRA and other FAO data sources. The FLUDE is online at: http://www.fao.org/forest-resources-assessment/explore-data/flude/en/. The appropriate use and combination of any other relevant and open data sources (i.e. FAOSTAT or other suitable datasets and information from international organizations, NGOs, etc) is welcome and encouraged. Target users include the scientific community, experts and/or policy-makers or the general public.
The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check the list of publications. Please check out the website for further announcements via the (news and events pages) or follow the latest discussions at the (community pages).
This is the September 2015 newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems:
Experiences at Conferences and Workshops
There were several meetings scheduled for this summer, which allowed members of the CoP to meet. The conference "Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World" from 6-9th of July 2015 in Smokovce ( website ) brought together 130 participants including international researchers, international mountain forestry stakeholders and ARANGE consortium partners. The invited keynote speakers Bernhard Wolfslehner, Timo Pukkala and Peter Brang provided a conceptual framework for the conference. In total 48 oral and 31 poster presentations provided thought-provoking insights to the topic, whereas several presentations where related to decision support systems for forest management as well. For more details check out the information on the web.
The EURO 2015 as the premier European conference for Operational Research and Management Science (ORMS), organised by the European Association of Operational Research Societies in conjunction with the UK OR Society was held from 12-15 of July 2015 in the University of Strathclyde ( website ). There were given three plenary speakers, including the IFORS distinguished lecturer, and 11 keynote/tutorial speakers. Several streams focused on forestry and decision support - for downloading the Conference Programme click here.
The Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2015) was held from 19-21 of August, 2015 in Uppsala, Sweden ( website ).The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Skogforsk hosted more than 100 participants from 22 countries. The keynotes speakers Alan Ager, Charlotte Bengtsson, Sten B. Nilsson and Mikael Rönnqvist gave an overview of the challenges facing the forest sector and in depth analyses of Operations Research modelling issues. More than 65 presentations covering 12 different thematic areas and a number of posters were presented at the symposium. You kind find the book of abstracts here and the link to the presentations made available so far. The CoP assembeled the ForestDSS Council in its annual meeting as a side event to the conference. During the meeting the past, current and future activities were discussed - a short report on the Council meeting and the minutes are online available.
So there were many good opportunities to meet friends and exchange about ongoing research activities in the field of forest management decision support.
New publications
The Special Issue of Forests that was intended to comprise the research presented at the 24th IUFRO World Congress. The papers provide an overview regarding how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. For more details regarding the published papers can be found in the overview information available on the CoP website and the special issue at the website of the journal.
Also the list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check the list of publications.
New members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all! In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome all: Radomir Balazy from the Forest Research Institute (Poland), Antonios Athanasiadis from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Oludare Adedeji from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (Nigeria)and MustaphaOuhimmou from the École de technologie supérieure - VCO Network (Canada), among many others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some of the new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
There are two conferences organized next year, which allow to strengthen collaboration and outreach by the DSS community.
The ICDSST 2016 will be organized by the EURO Working Group on Decision Support Systems (EWG-DSS) in co-operation with University of Plymouth, UK, during the period of 23-25 May 2016. The conference will be hosted by the Plymouth Graduate School of Management & Plymouth Business School, Faculty of Business. The main purpose of the EWG-DSS 2016 International Conference on Decision Support System Technology (ICDSST 2016), with its main theme on “Decision Support Systems Addressing Societal Challenges”, is to attract researchers, developers and specialists in the related areas of decision making, including its methodologies and technologies, as well as application oriented practitioners directed to the implementation of solutions for societal challenges. More information on the call for papers can be found online: https://icdsst2016.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/icdsst-2016/ The EWG-DSS welcomes proposals for organizing a ForestDSS session based on the inputs from members of the CoP at the conference as well. In case that you have interest to organize such a session please get in contact with Harald Vacik, Jose Borges and Ljusk Ola Eriksson.
The annual meeting of the Canadian Operational Research Society (CORS) brings together Operational Research academics from Canada and abroad. The next Annual CORS conference will take place inCanada's oldest national park, Banff. Within the conference, the Forestry Special Interest Group (FSIG) is organizing a cluster focused on OR applications in Forestry, and members of the CoP are invited to join the group. A call will be released soon for the conference and will include as well a call for papers for the 2016 edition of the David Martell Student Paper Prize in Forestry which recognizes outstanding scientific contributions on the theory, methodology and/or practice of OR in forestry/forest products industry by an undergraduate, a graduate student or a postdoctoral. The conference website will be available soon at: http://www.cors.ca/en/conferences/i_cors.php. Please contact Claudia Cambero (cambero.claudia@gmail.com) if you are interested in submitting a paper to be presented at the Forestry OR cluster or to participate in the paper competition, and also if you are interested in organizing a session.
The Guest Editor Luis Inostroza (Inostroza@technotope.org) likes to call your attention about the Special Issue (SI) in the Ecosystem Services Journal (ELSEVIER) they are preparing. The aim of this Special Issue is to present novel approaches to implement ecosystem service frameworks putting them into practice towards sustainable land management. This could be by coupling ecosystem services with land use change models, stakeholder approaches to introduce newly developed tools and to address user needs and requests regarding the future course of assessment tools and development of indicators. Articles attempting basic research should outline explicit links towards policy use and/or land management decision support. Contributions that include original research (including case studies) and review articles are encouraged. Full papers submission deadline is 01 of March 2016 and expected publication date of the Special Issue: 01 of February 2017.
You are able to track always the latest call for papers and get to know about interesting conferences at the news and events page of the CoP.
Participation in Survey
There is an invitation by Mustapha Ouhimmou to participate in an online survey on the usefulness of DSS in forest planning as part of the research project conducted at École de technologie supérieure in Montréal. The organizers are reaching out to academic, industrial and government decisions makers, who use a wide range of DSSs in forest planning. They are interested to get feedback on the most important challenges and opportunities that must be addressed or supported in the current and next generation of DSSs in forest planning. In case you are interested to participate the direct link to the survey can be found here.
We would like to provide you with an update on the recent developments of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems. This is the fifth newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems:
Conferences and Workshops
There are several meetings scheduled for this summer, which allows members of the CoP to meet physically in a side event of the planned conferences. This week several members will gather at the conference "Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World" from 6th to the 9th of July 2015 in Smokovce ( website ) . The EURO 2015 as the premier European conference for Operational Research and Management Science (ORMS), organised by the European Association of Operational Research Societies in conjunction with the UK OR Society will be held the week after from 12-15 of July 2015 in the University of Strathclyde ( website ). And the Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2015) will be held from August 19 to August 21, 2015 in Uppsala, Sweden ( website ). So there are many good opportunities to meet friends and exchange about ongoing research activities in the field of forest management decision support.
From 13th to 15th of April 2015, a conference was held in Łagów, Poland on decision support systems in forest management. The conference was jointly organized by IUFRO 4.02.05, the Polish Forest Service and the Forest Research Institute under the patronage of the Forest Sciences Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The three-day event was attended by over 90 participants from Austria, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden. During the first day, participants had the opportunity to listen to 12 presentations prepared by scientists and practitioners. During the next two days, the participants took part in a workshop on practical applications of computer based decision support solutions of different countries. For more details please check the website .
New publications
There are eleven papers already published in the Special Issue of Forests that was intended to comprise the research presented at the 24th IUFRO World Congress. The papers provide an overview regarding how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. For more details regarding the published papers - please check out the special issue .
The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check the list of publications.
New members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all!
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome all: Jyrki Kangas from the University of Eastern Finland (Finland), Vicent Kint from the Agency for Nature and Forests (Belgium), Helmer Belbo from the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute (Norway), Geerten Hengeveld from Wageningen UR (Netherlands), Magnus Fröhling from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany), Marian Dragoi of the Faculty of Forestry of Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava (Romania) and Elaine Mosconi from the Université de Sherbrooke (Canada) or Allan Ager from the USDA forest Service among many others.
We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some of the new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
- The call for applications to scholarships for the doctoral program SUSFOR is still open website
- The international Summer School InVEST Models “Mapping and Valuating Ecosystem Services for Better Decision Making” is asking for applications website
- The list of DSS descriptions in the wiki is continuously updated, we have now 69 computer based tools described, you are invited to explore its content WIKI
This is the fourth newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems. We would like to update you on the recent developments in the CoP:
Meetings and Workshops
The Technical University in Zvolen organized jointly with University of Lisbonon on December the 2nd, 2014 in the framework of the bilateral project "Development of modules and interfaces for forestry decision support systems" a workshop in Zvolen, Slovakia. Several presentations were given and the forest practioners had the opportunity to critically evaluate the usability of the decision support systems. For more details please check the website
Upcoming conferences and meetings
There are several meetings scheduled for this year, which would allow the members of the CoP to meet physically in a council meeting as a side event of the planned conferences. Two options are listed below, where members of the CoP are warmly welcomed to participate and present their research and submit an abstract as well:
The conference "Mountain Forest Management in a Changing World" will provide the opportunity to present and discuss the potentials and limitations of current and possible future approaches to mountain forest management for providing portfolios of ecosystem services under current and future climatic and socio-economic conditions. Themes of the conference are Potentials and limitations of current management approaches to provide multiple ecosystem services, Climate change impacts on ecosystem service provisioning in mountain forests, Disturbance regimes in mountain forests and implications for ecosystem services, Alternative management strategies in mountain forests and consequences on ecosystem service provisioning, Decision support tools for mountain forest management, Governance approaches to secure multiple ecosystem service provisioning in the future. Deadline for the submission of abstracts is 15 February 2015. The call for abstracts is available at the website
The Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2015) will be held from August 19 to August 21, 2015 in Uppsala, Sweden. The SSAFR symposia congregate researchers and practitioners in the area of Operations Research and Systems Analysis in Forest Resources. Topics of interest include: strategic, operational and tactical planning forest planning, fire and pests, spatial problems, hierarchical problems, forest operations, forest supply chain, multiple objectives, uncertainty, GIS and information technologies, algorithmic developments, exact, heuristic and metaheuristic methods as well as broad problem areas such as economics of sustainability, assessment of ecosystem services, environmental issues, wood for energy, and landscape planning. Deadline for the submission of presentations and posters is March 1st, 2015. More details can be found at the website .
The EURO 2015 as the premier European conference for Operational Research and Management Science (ORMS), organised by the European Association of Operational Research Societies in conjunction with the UK OR Society will be held from 12-15 of July in the University of Strathclyde. The organizers of the stream Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (area: OR in Natural Resources) invite you to submit an abstract of your research in the broad area of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Your research in the field of decision support systems might fit to one of the following sessions: Sustainable Forest Management and Ecosystems Services and OR in Forestry. Deadline for the submission of presentations and posters is March 16th, 2015. For more details please check out the call for papers and the (EURO 2015 website ).
There are five papers already published in the Special Issue of Forests that was intended to comprise the research presented at the 24th IUFRO World Congress. The papers provide an overview regarding how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. For more details regarding the published papers of Marusak et al., Garcia-Gonzalo et al., Reynolds et al., Aldea et al. and Estrella et al. please check out the special issue . We are looking forward the other papers to be published soon in this special issue as well.
The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check the list of publications.
New members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice and we welcome them all! Michal Petr from the Northern Research Station at Forest Research (UK), Edwin Corrigan from the University College Dublin (Ireland), Kyle Eyvindson from the University of Helsinki (Finland), Peter Surový from the Czech University of Life Sciences (Czech Republic), Naicong Li from the Spatial Decision Support Consortium (United States) and Martin Forsslund from Esri (Sweden), Suresh Thachappully from the Kerala Forest Research Institute (India) Francisco Dominguez Hernadez from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (Mexico), Jean-Martin Lussier from the Canadian Forest Service-Canadian Wood Fibre Centre (Canada) among many others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - Here are only some of the new members with their affiliation highlighted - for more details on all members please refer to the search page
This is the third newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems. We would like to update you on the recent developments in the CoP:
Council Meeting at the IUFRO Conference
During the IUFRO Congress in Salt Lake City a session explored how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for a sustained provision of ecosystem services under climate change, ranging from examples in the US and Europe. The presenters provided an overview about the different models, methods and techniques applied to support decision making under changing environmental conditions and the challenges they have to tackle in tailoring the DSS to the needs of the decision makers. Conclusions on the presentations and the presentations itself can be downloaded from the: website
Council Meeting at IFORS Conference
Members of the Working Committee of the Community of Practice gathered during a side event of the 20th Conference of the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS 2014) held from 13-18 July 2014 in the city of Barcelona. A lot of interesting presentations were given and some of them have been made available for download at the website:
Forestdss.org website and new members
In the last months a number of new members joined the Community of Practice from around the globe:
Annelies De Meyer from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at KU Leuven (Belgium), Michal Petr from the Northern Research Station at Forest Research (UK), Clemens Blattert from the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL (Switzerland), Robert Marusak from the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and Pavel Cudlín from the Global Change Research Centre (Czech Republic), Larisa Khanina, Head of Laboratory of Computational Ecology at the Institute of Mathematical Problems in Biology of RAS (Russia) and Ragnar K.H. Jonsson from the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Verena Griess from the University of British Columbia (Canada) and Jose Javier Corral Rivas from the Universidad Juarez del Estado de Durango (Mexico) among others. We are happy about their involvement in the CoP and warmly welcome the new members - for more details on the members please refer to the search page
New publications
The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers. The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check them out – for instance the paper published by
Gordon et al. (2014) in the special issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research more info
or the book on the FORSYS Country reports by
Borges et al. (eds.) (2014) Computer-based tools for supporting forest management. The experience and the expertise world-wide. more info
Upcoming conferences and meetings
There are several meetings scheduled for next year, which would allow the members of the CoP to meet physically in a council meeting as a side event of the planned conferences. Two options are listed below, where members of the CoP are warmly welcomed to participate:
The EURO 2015 as the premier European conference for Operational Research and Management Science (ORMS), organised by the European Association of Operational Research Societies in conjunction with the UK OR Society will be held from 12-15 of July in the University of Strathclyde more info
The Symposium for Systems Analysis in Forest Resources (SSAFR 2015) which will be held from August 19 to August 21, 2015 in Uppsala, Sweden. more info
We looking forward to meet all of you in one or the other event!
This is the second newsletter of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems. We would like to update you on the recent developments in the CoP:
Working Committee Meeting of CoP
On the 11th of June 2014 the last meeting of the Working Committee of the ForestDSS Community of Practice (CoP) took place. It was possible to review the activities of the different working groups and update the plans for the scheduled activities. It was agreed that all members should be more actively involved in the actions – therefore the work plans and the members of the Working Committee are now available via the website: workgroups .
Please contact the responsible Working Committee members in case that you want to be engaged in the collaborative work on a scientific publication or are able to contribute to the overall objectives of the group.
Call for papers in “Forests”
The deadline for the submission of contributions for the Special Issue in the scientific journal “Forests” was post phoned to the end of June 2014. So it is still possible for a limited number of authors to submit their interest in participating. The SI will provide an overview regarding how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. The issue will include overviews on models, methods, techniques, and frameworks. The deadline for the submission of your full paper is November 2014. So in case that you have an interest to contribute with your scientific work to the SI then please let us (harald.vacik@boku.ac.at) know by e-mail until end of June 2014 about you interest, by sending an abstract and title. For more details on the call for the Special issue please check out: the call.
Council Meeting at the Conference Implementation of DSS Tools into the Forestry Practice
The Technical University in Zvolen and the University of Lisbon organizes the Second International Scientific Conference on Implementation of DSS Tools into the Forestry Practice from 18-20.09.2014 in Zvolen, Slovakia. The conference will focus on topics related to uncertainty, risk and the human dimension in adaptive forest management and under climate change. The CoP will organize a Council Meeting as a side event of the conference, where we welcome members of the CoP and participants of the conference warmly. Based on the latest informations the deadline for the submission of abstracts has been extended to end of June 2014 – so it is still possible to submit your contributions and present your research on DSS:
call for papers .
Forestdss.org website and new members
In the last months since the launch of the Community of Practice Website we had also a couple of new members that joined the CoP. Bart Muys from the Forest Ecology and Management Research Group and Floris Dalemans from the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape (FNL) at KU Leuven, Reza Pourmoayed from the Department of Economics and Business at Aarhus University and Rivas-Portillo from the Technical University of Madrid among others. We are happy about their involvement and warmly welcome the new members! 90 members are currently registered ( search for users.)
Please check out the website for announcements via the news and events pages or follow the latest discussions at the community pages.
New publications
The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers . The most recent papers of members of the CoP are always highlighted on the main page of the CoP. You might have an interest to check them out – for instance the book published by Reynolds et al. (2014) in Springer or the paper by Segura et al. (2014) in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture on Decision support systems for forest management: A comparative analysis and assessment.
Upcoming conferences and meetings
There are several meetings scheduled this year, which would allow the members of the CoP to meet physically in a council meeting as a side event of the planned conferences. At least three options are listed below, where the members of the CoP are warmly welcomed to participate:
The IFORS conference will be held from 13-18 July 2014 in the city of Barcelona, Spain.
The Second International Scientific Conference on Implementation of DSS Tools into the Forestry Practice from 18-20.09.2014 in Zvolen, Slovakia
The 24th IUFRO World Congress in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA in October 5-11, 2014 where the CoP will organize the session "Providing Ecosystem Services under Climate Change - Community of Practice of Forest Decision Support Systems" and will have a business meeting (6.10.2014) in collaboration with the IUFRO group 4.03.03 (Information management and information technologies) at the congress.
This is the first newsletter to be sent to all registered members of the Community of Practice (CoP) on Forest Management Decision Support Systems. Our intention is to send on a regular basis a summary of the recent developments in the CoP and about the upcoming events.
Annual Meeting of CoP in Lisbon
At the last annual meeting of the CoP at the Decision Support System Workshop for Sustainable Forest Management and Policy Advice in Lisbon it was possible to agree on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the modalities and organisation of the work within the ForestDSS Community of Practice (CoP). The attending members agreed on the terms of reference and the members of Working Committee presented their planned activities for the next year. At the meeting Harald Vacik was nominated as coordinator of the ForestDSS CoP for the next year and Ola Eriksson has been nominated as a vice coordinator for supporting the steering of the CoP. The members of the Working Committee of the CoP are responsible for drafting their workplans for the activities - the responsibilities and tasks of the different groups in the CoP are defined in the MoU. The adopted version of the MoU can found on the CoP website. (http://www.forestdss.org/CoP/sites/default/files/ForestDSS_CoP_MoU_12_2013.pdf )
A report on the Decision Support System Workshop for Sustainable Forest Management and Policy Advice is available in the recent IUFRO news. The IUFRO bulletin reports on the activities during the workshop, the computer lab sessions and the first meeting of the ForestDSS User group.
please check out: http://www.iufro.org/publications/news/electronic-news/io-news-1401/
A detailed documentation about the workshop including a reference to the presentations and computer lab sessions given can be found on the Cop website. The presentations were recorded and are therefore available as video-lectures as well: http://forestdss.org/CoP/community/successful-meeting-cop-lisbon
Forestdss.org website
In the first weeks of the launch of the new Community of Practice Website we had a great start with regard to the number of registered users. More than 80 members are currently registered on the website (http://www.forestdss.org/CoP/search/node?qt-search_results=4#qt-search_results) which is a great start! In the next weeks a number of additional functionalities will be added to the community website, which should allow members to explore the content more easily and add material and resources. Please check out the website for announcements via the news and events pages (http://www.forestdss.org/CoP/content/community-news) or follow the latest discussions at the community pages (http://www.forestdss.org/CoP/community). The list of publications is steadily growing and allows a good overview about forest DSS related papers (http://www.forestdss.org/CoP/publications). The most recent papers will be highlighted on the front page of the CoP.
Upcoming conferences and meetings
There are several meetings scheduled this year, which would allow the members of the CoP to meet physically in a council meeting as a side event of the planned conferences. At least three options are listed below, where the members of the CoP are warmly welcomed to participate:
The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) organizes its 24th IUFRO World Congress in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA in October 5-11, 2014 (www.iufro2014.com). The CoP on Forest Management Decision Support Systems will organize the session "Providing Ecosystem Services under Climate Change - Community of Practice of Forest Decision Support Systems" at the congress.
The Technical University in Zvolen and the University of Lisbon invites you to the Second International Scientific Conference on Implementation of DSS Tools into the Forestry Practice from 18-20.09.2014 in Zvolen, Slovakia (http://gis.tuzvo.sk/dssfm2014/). The conference will focus on topics related to uncertainty, risk and the human dimension in adaptive forest management and under climate change. The CoP will organize a Council Meeting as a side event of the conference:
The IFORS Barcelona conference (http://www.ifors2014.org/) will be held from 13-18 July 2014 in the city of Barcelona, in the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Several presentations from CoP members will focus on forest related topics at the conference, which will allow participants to meet and discuss the ongoing trends in OR.
A Special Issue in the scientific journal “Forests” will provide an overview regarding how Decision Support Systems (DSS) are currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem services within the context of climate change. The issue will include overviews on models, methods, techniques, and frameworks. This SI will allow presenters at the CoP session at the IUFRO World congress to publish their paper. A limited number of papers is intended to be included in the SI even when you are not able to participate in the congress. The deadline for the submission of your full paper is November 2014. So in case that you have an interest to contribute with your scientific work to the SI then please let us (harald.vacik@boku.ac.at) know by e-mail until end of April 2014 about you interest, so that we can organize the outline of the SI. For more details on the call for the Special issue please check out:
The Community of Practice on Forest Management Decision Support Systems is intending to establish a network of activities carried out at national and regional level for supporting the partnership and promote transnational collaborations. In case that you want to promote your DSS related activities via the CoP and want to exchange your knowledge with the other members, so please do not hesitate to contact us, in order to support you.
we looking forward a fruitful future collaboration
