Uncertainty roundtable

In this roundtable discussion, Prof Craig Bishop, Assoc Prof Mark Quigley and Dr Rebecca Runting showcase research in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences focused on the quantification, impacts and use of uncertainty. The session is moderated by PhD student Ruby Lieber.

Mark described how epistemic uncertainty can be converted to aleatoric uncertainty to assist decision-makers with making risk-informed judgements, and the wide array of additional uncertainties that must be considered in the process, such as linguistic and value uncertainties. Unfortunately, Mark’s presentation was not recorded, but you can read more about his work in this space here.

Rebecca then describes a case study that adapts modern portfolio theory (from economics) to design a robust protected area network for coastal wetlands under uncertain sea level rise, and how this method can be extended to incentivise sustainable rangeland management in northern Australia under climate and economic changes.

Finally, Craig discusses how a “replicate systems” approach to understanding and quantifying uncertainties of model-based representations of current and future climate distributions leads to mathematical methods that improve model-based climate projections.