Next week is the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Symposium of the US chapter of the International Association of Landscape Ecology (US-IALE). I’ll be in attendance in Athens, Georgia and am currently working on my presentation, entitled Ecological-economic modeling for sustainable forest management (scheduled for Thursday 8th, 2.20pm in room T/U). In the context of our larger modelling project I’ll present work we’ve published, stuff we’re still working on, and the initial results from putting it all together.

Several symposia have been organised and I plan to be at those that consider landscape ecology and wildfires, bioenergy and land-use change, and climate change and landscape connectivity. Particularly interesting should be Don McKenzie’s presentations on ecosystem energetics and scaling laws in the wildfire symposium and Paul Opdam’s presentations on Natura 2000 and the role of landscape ecology in the climate change symposium. Two of the plenary addresses I’d like to catch are Collapse and Sustainability: Lessons from History (Joseph A Tainter) and Linking Renaissance Ecologists with Citizen Scientists to Advanced Scientific Research and Literacy (Carol Brewer).

As usual CSIS has a strong presence at US-IALE this year with seven presentations, including the insights of Jack Liu and Wu Yang into the challenges and opportunities for landscape ecology and conservation in coupled human natural research, the analysis by Andres Vina and Xiaodong Chen of the potential conservation benefits that might be offset by natural disasters, Mao-Ning Tuanmu’s work on Giant Panda habitat and the work by Pete Esselman and Dana Infante on the National Assessment of the Status of Fish Habitat. The full list of CSIS presentations is below.

It’s shaping up to be a good couple of days! I’ll try to tweet and blog some thoughts as they arise during the conference and maybe reflect on things afterwards also.

CSIS Presentations at US-IALE 2010
6th April
Are conservation benefits offset by natural disasters? — The case of the May 12, 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. Andrés Viña, Xiaodong Chen, Wei Liu, et al.

Coupling human and natural systems: Challenges and opportunities for landscape ecologists. Jianguo Liu

The spatial framework and results of the initial National Assessment of the Status of Fish Habitat. Peter C Esselman, Dana M Infante, et al.

7th April
Effects of human-environment relationships on the spatiotemporal dynamics of giant panda habitat. Mao-Ning Tuanmu, Wei Liu, Andrés Viña, et al.

8th April
Ecological-economic modeling for sustainable forest management. James D A Millington, Michael B Walters, Megan S Matonis, et al.

Mechanisms for effective conservation in coupled human-natural systems. Wu Yang, Wei Liu, Mao-Ning Tuanmu, et al.

Patterns and drivers of reforestation: A case study in the Qinling Mountains, China. Yu Li, Andrés Viña, Jianguo Liu