Direction not Destination

Global Change Blog

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:34:00 +0000

This week I discovered a new blog that looks worth following for anyone interested in human-environment interactions, sustainability, or CHANS. The Global Change blog intends to explore big questions...

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Autumnal Upper Peninsula

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Some pictures from a trip we took to Michigan's Upper Peninsula earlier this month (fun rather than fieldwork for once). The road to Paradise (Michigan) Ship on Whitefish Bay Whitefish Point,...

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Challenges for Ecological Modelling

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:43:00 +0000

Pressing contemporary ecological issues emphasise questions about how we should go about modelling ecological systems. In their preface to the latest volume of Ecological Modelling, Solidoro et al....

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Conference Deadlines

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:15:00 +0000

Those interested in landscape modelling might want to be aware of the deadlines for LANDMOD 2010 and US-IALE 2010. LANDMOD 2010 LANDMOD 2010 will be held at SupAgro in Montpellier, France, February...

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Synthetic Trees

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:06:00 +0000

When testing and using simulation models we often need to use synthetic data. This might be because we want to examine the effects of different initial conditions on our model output, or simply...

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Securing the West Country's Rural Future

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:18:00 +0000

A joint seminar between the Royal Bath and West of England Society and RGS with IBG, "with the aim of examining some of the problems and solutions relating to planning for future sustainable land use...

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It takes all sorts

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:50:00 +0000

Neoclassical economics, both its assumptions and its ability to forecast future economic activity, has been taking a bit of a panning recently. Back near the start of this most recent economic...

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Interdisciplinarity, Sustainability and Critical Realism

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:52:00 +0000

I have a new paper to add to my collection of favourites. Hidden in the somewhat obscure Journal of Critical Realism it touches on several issues that I often find myself thinking about and studying:...

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ESA 2009 Deer Density Presentation on Nature Precedings

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:06:00 +0000

The presentation I made at ESA 2009 is now online at Nature Precedings, a platform for sharing new and preliminary findings globally. The presentation itself is embedded below, or visit Nature...

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CHANS-Net at AAG 2010

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Details of plans for CHANS-Net activities at the 2010 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Washington, D.C. have been posted. Presentations and a workshop are expected...

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Arizona's Ancient Landscape

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:20:00 +0000

My landscape interests usually focus on contemporary, biological issues like forest dynamics and human activity. But driving through Arizona's desert it's hard not to be impressed by landscape...

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Disturbance and Landscape Dynamics in a Changing World

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Experimentation can be tricky for landscape ecologists, especially if we're considering landscapes at the human scale (it's a bit easier at the beetle scale [pdf]). The logistic constraints of...

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Challenges and Opportunities in CHANS Research

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:00:00 +0000

The discussion forum is now up and running at CHANS-Net. I have just posted some questions regarding challenges and opportunities in CHANS research that arose from the CHANS workshop at US-IALE 2009....

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Accuracy 2010

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:57:00 +0000

I've mentioned uncertainty several times on this blog in the past (examples one and two), so it seems appropriate to highlight the next International Symposium on Spatial Accuracy Assessment in...

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Incendio en un Paisaje Mediterráneo

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Our recent paper describing and testing the Mediterranean Landscape Fire Succession Model I developed during my PhD has caught the eye of some folks in Spain. sinc (Servicio de Informacion y Noticias...

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ESA 2009 Agenda

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:57:00 +0000

I've just arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the Ecological Society of American meeting. Before heading out to explore town I've been putting the final touches to my presentation (Monday,...

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Ensemble Modelling

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Uncertainty is an inherent part of modelling. Models by definition are simplified representations of reality - as such they are all wrong. Being wrong doesn't necessarily make them useless, but it...

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Food Choices

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:35:00 +0000

I started thinking more closely about food - where it comes from, how it's produced, how I might choose more sustainable foods - after hearing a keynote speech by Prof. Jon Foley at US-IALE 2009....

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New Models for Ecosystems Dynamics and Restoration

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:02:00 +0000

Recently I've been working on a review of the latest contribution to The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration book series, entitled New Models for Ecosystems Dynamics and Restoration...

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Bayesian Multimodel Inference

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:42:00 +0000

The abstract we submitted to the ESA Meeting was accepted a while back. Since we submitted it, Megan and I have been back in the field for some additional data collection and I've been doing some new...

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What is the point... of social simulation modelling?

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:27:00 +0000

Previously, I mentioned a thread on SIMSOC initiated by Scott Moss. He asked 'Does anyone know of a correct, real-time, [agent] model-based, policy-impact forecast?. Following on to the responses to...

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Millington et al. 2009 - A landscape fire-succession model

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:09:00 +0000

As promised, I'm hollering: Millington, J.D.A., Wainwright, J., Perry, G.L.W., Romero-Calcerrada, R. and Malamud, B.D. (2009) Modelling Mediterranean landscape succession-disturbance dynamics: A...

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End of the Line

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Coinciding with World Oceans Day, today was the UK premier of End of the Line the "world’s first major documentary about the devastating effect of overfishing". It already seems to be making an...

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nighthawks

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:23:00 +0000

I love the energy of big cities. Sometimes there's so much it spills over into the early hours of the morning. On a trip to Chicago last weekend we saw Hopper's evocative depiction of that straggling...

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Developing Sustainable Lifestyles

noreply@blogger.com (James) — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:35:00 +0000

It can be hard not to abandon hope for a sustainable future when you read about our rapidly growing global population and the hopes of those in the developing world (growing the fastest) to lead more...

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