Scoping Research in Sustainability Information Science

Steven D. PragerDepartment of GeographyUniversity of Wyoming

David BennettDepartment of GeographyUniversity of Iowa

From Reconciling Imperatives to Bridging Scholarship and Policy

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Purpose

Why a new information science?

What makes sustainability information science different from other existing information sciences?

Is the goal to push information science forward using the unique needs of sustainability science as motivation?

Is it to adapt and synthesize existing information science such that it better supports sustainability science and decision-making?

Definition

Ontology of a sustainable system

Ontology of a sustainable information system

Well defined sustainability metrics or classes of metrics

Well defined connections to related concepts (e.g., resilience and adaptive capacity)

Definition

Challenging because sustainability is:• Not a fixed natural state that can be known

solely through scientific measurement, but culturally defined, (Dahl 2012)

• Resources required for environmental, economic, and social wellbeing change through time and across space

• Therefore, sustainability is contextualized in time, space, and culture

• Transformation and adaptability of population/resource relationships over time and space must be represented captured and modeled (Walker et al. 2004, Folke et al. 2010).

Spatiotemporal dynamics of natural processes spatiotemporal dynamics of human processes

The effect of boundaries-

jurisdictional ideological cultural technological

Future directed informed by the past and present

Fundamentally UncertainMust embrace the unknown/unknowable.

Development and Research

Equifinality vs. Multifinality

Path 1

Path 3

Path 2 Outcome

Path

Outcome 1

Outcome 3

Outcome 2

Many Elements

HysteresisPotential multiple stable states

Processes spanning multiple hierarchies and scale

Spatial/Ecological

Political

Individual to national-level trends

Intersecting/integrated fast and slow processes

Complex feedbacks

Adaptive cycleGrowth/exploitation (r)

conservation (K)

Collapse/release (Ω)

reorganization (α)

Adaptive and emergent behavior

Dynamic networksSocial networks

Ecological networks

Social-ecological networks

Qualitative & quantitative data

Provenance of complexity Provenance of sustainability

Research Opportunities

New ST representationsBoundary dynamics, flows, human/nature interaction, feedbacks.

Citizen science, social networks, pervasive/ubiquitous data collection.

How/when/why is this useful.

Sensor networks, data discovery (post-normal science)

Role of HPC, distributed computing, etc.

Much more…

Strategies for Moving Forward

Need to build critical mass on two fronts:Underlying Fundamentals

Ontology of SIS as a first pass at articulating a collective understanding of SIS.

Contributors and ProblemsA Research Coordination Network to build/escalate synergies in SS research.

Ontology as Theory

Fonseca (2007) suggests that if we build theories (ontologies for science) BEFORE conceptual modeling, we build better models.

This is in the context of information science, but why not view sustainability science from this perspective?

Assertion: ontology of sustainability science will enable better ontologies for sustainability science.

Better ontologies for sustainability science will enable better science.

(Fonseca, 2007)

Formalizing Information Representation

Realm

Foundation Realm most general, least detail

Domain Realm topical perspective

Method / Task / Tool Realm

direct the processing of constructs

Application Realm situate use of information within a purpose

Guarino (1997)

Foundations of Sustainability Information Representation Theory:Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Sustainable Systems

Nyerges et al. (In Review)

Building Community via DIBBs

Conceptualization AwardDeveloping disciplinary and interdisciplinary communities' understanding of their data.The output of a conceptualization award will be design specifications for creating a sustainable data infrastructure that will be discoverable, searchable, accessible, and usable to the entire research and education community.

Building Community via RCN

Bring sustainability information scientists working on various topics together in synergistic ways

Bring sustainability information scientists and social and natural scientists together in synergistic ways to:

form common language and conceptual framework

insure help insure computation tools developed in the name of SIScience are well conceptualized and useful

Provide case studies to help develop and contextualize SIS

Provide applications to illustrate the utility of SIS

Application and case study

Sustainability science is inherently interdisciplinary

Sustainability informaticists can’t do this in isolation

Interaction with interdisciplinary teams working in sustainability science is required

Opportunities for Engagement

Workshop proposal in process:GeoVoCamp-like approach.

Collaborative, participatory.

Product oriented – foundation for later DIBBs or similar proposals.

SLCN Steering Committee:Active coordination, community building

Preparing in anticipation of RCN and related solicitations.

Thankssdprager@uwyo.edu