Topic 1: Slack and Scarcity in Wildfire, Matthew Thompson

Dr. Matthew P Thompson is a Research Forester with the Wildfire Risk Management Science Team at the Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service. In 2016 he was a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. His research interests include: wildland fire management; risk, systems, and decision analysis; data science and analytics; operations research; management science; forest management; and coupled human and natural systems. He has a BS in systems engineering from the University of Virginia, a MS in industrial engineering and operations research from the University of California, Berkeley, a MS in forest management from Oregon State University, a PhD in forest engineering from Oregon State University, and a professional certificate in strategic decision and risk management from Stanford University. In this talk he will explore themes of slack and scarcity and how they relate to efficiency and risk in wildfire. He will first discuss slack and scarcity in the context of incident response and then scale up to the interagency system that prioritizes and allocates resources across incidents. Emphasis will be on how enhanced prioritization, logistics, operations, and proven fire analytics can support synergistic efficiency at fire incident and system scales. Lastly, he will discuss how the concepts slack and scarcity may apply to other contexts such as systemic wildfire risks in utilities and critical infrastructure

**********************************************

Topic 2: The DecisionES project: Decision Support for the Supply of Ecosystem Services under Global Change, Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo and Jose G Borges.

Dr. Jordi Garcia-Gonzalo is currently the head of the Landscape Dynamics and Biodiversity program and develops his research within the Precision Forestry – New tools for forestry decision making (PrecFOR) lab. His research interests focus on the development of forest ecosystem management models, optimization methods and decision support systems. The main objective is to develop scientifically sound methods that can be used for enhanced integration of adaptive strategies in multiple-objective landscape management planning.  This includes the development of iDSSs that may address the complexity of multi-objective and multi-stakeholder landscape planning under climate change and other risks (e.g. forest fires, pests).

Dr José G. Borges has a Ph.D. in Forest Sciences (U. Minnesota); Associate Professor at the School of Agriculture (ISA), ULisboa. Coordinator of IUFRO Unit 4.04.04 Sustainable forest management scheduling and of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree Mediterranean Forestry and Natural Resources Management. Over 25 years of research experience, acted as PI or as coordinator of the participation of ISA in several national and international projects. Co-authored over 100 international peer-reviewed publications.

Pressures on forest ecosystems are very likely to increase as a consequence of socioeconomic and demographic trends. A growing population will demand more products (e.g., wood) to be extracted from forest ecosystems. At the same time, these harvesting activities and their interactions with global change drivers will impact the sustainability of the supply of a wider range of non-provisioning services (e.g., wildfire protection, water, and biodiversity). DecisionES is a 5-year project (2021-2026) funded by the Marie Skodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) action under the European Union H2020 programme. The DecisionES general objective is to enhance forest management planning and policy analysis by evolving an integrated and multifunctional ecosystem services supply approach thus effectively contributing to delivery of services under climate change. Different models and methods will be developed and encapsulated in computer-based tools designed to effectively address concerns with the sustainability of the provision of ecosystem services. DecisionES plans to realize its strategic vision and general objective through the integration of complementary state-of-the-art multidisciplinary expertise available in its beneficiary and partner institutions. The consortium includes highly qualified research institutions in ten countries (i.e. Spain, Portugal, Finland, Sweden, Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil, Canada and USA) that share complementary interests in key scientific disciplines for an ecosystem services supply chain.