Sep 2, 2015 | Systems Analysis
By Matthias Wildemeersch, IIASA Advanced Systems Analysis and Ecosystems Services and Management Programs
FotoQuest Austria is a citizen science campaign initiated by the IIASA Ecosystems Services & Management Program that aims to involve the general public in mapping land use in Austria. Understanding the evolution of urban sprawl is important to estimate the risk of flooding, while the preservation of wetlands has important implications for climate change.
But how can we engage people in environmental monitoring, in particular when they are growing increasingly resistant to traditional forms of advertising? Viral marketing makes use of social networks to spread messages, and takes advantage of the trust that we have in the recommendation coming from a friend rather than from a stranger or a company.
Network science and the formal description of spreading phenomena can shed light on the propagation of messages through communities and can be applied to inform and design viral marketing campaigns.
Viral spreading © kittitee550 | Dollar Photo Club
Network science is a multi-disciplinary field of research that draws on graph theory, statistical mechanics, inference, and other theories to study the behavior of agents in various networks. The spreading phenomena in viral marketing show similarities with well-studied spreading processes over biological, social, physical, and financial networks. For instance, we can think about epidemics,which are well understood and allow for the design of optimal strategies to contain viruses. Another example is opinion dynamics, which received renewed research attention over the last years in the context of social media. In contrast to diseases or computer viruses, which we aim to contain and stop, the goal of viral marketing is to spread widely, reaching the largest possible fraction of a community.
What makes viral marketing unique?
But some aspects of viral marketing are very different from what we see in other spreading phenomena. First of all, there are many platforms that can be used to spread information at the same time, and the interaction between these platforms is not always transparent. Human psychology is a crucial factor in social networks, as repeated interaction and saturation can decrease the willingness to further spread viral content. Marketing campaigns have a limited budget, and therefore it is meaningful to understand how we can use incentives and how efficient they are. This also means that it is essential to find the group of most influential people that can be used as seeds for the viral campaign.
Network science has addressed to a great extent all these individual questions, mostly under the assumption of full knowledge of the connections between the agents and their influence. Currently, so-called multiplexes are an active research field that studies the behavior of multi-layer networks. This research unveils the relationships between the dynamics of viral marketing, the connection pattern, and strength between the network layers. Although viral spreading may be unachievable in a single layer, for example a social network like Facebook, the critical threshold may be exceeded by joining different platforms. Within a given platform, people alike can be clustered using community detection algorithms. Once the communities are identified, influence maximization algorithms have been established to select these persons that maximize the spread of viral content. Although this discrete optimization problem is computationally difficult—or NP-hard—mathematicians have proposed algorithms that can efficiently predict who to target to give a campaign the best chance of going viral. On top of that, optimal pricing strategies have been developed to reward recommenders.
The FotoQuest Austria app aims to engage citizen scientists in their campaign – network theory may help them go “viral.” © IIASA
Although the literature is extensive, the nature of the results is often theoretical and involves mathematically complex models and algorithms. Considering that only partial information on the network is usually available, it is not straightforward to bring this knowledge back to a practical marketing campaign. So researchers in this field are trying to bridge the gap between theoretical results and practical problems. The generic, powerful methods of network science are sufficiently versatile to capture the specifics of real-world applications. As such, network science can provide guidelines that can bring great value for the design of heuristic methods in marketing strategies.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Aug 27, 2015 | Communication, Science and Art
By Gloria Benedikt, IIASA Associate for Science and Arts
Gloria Benedikt speaks at “Towards a Sustainable Future,” Palais Niederoesterreich, March 2015. Photo: Matthias Silveri
“For the real human story, history must comprise both the biological and the cultural,” wrote biologist Edward O. Wilson in his 2014 book The Meaning of Human Existence. ”The convergence between those two great branches of learning (sciences and humanities) will matter hugely when enough people have thought its potential through”.
This elegantly summarizes why I find myself at IIASA. I’ve been splitting my life between the arts (working as a professional dancer) and academia (studying at Harvard University). Over time I started to make connections between seemingly opposing worlds: arts and science. Now my challenge as IIASA Associate for Science and Arts is to help bridge them.
Why is this important, and why now? Because the way the world is run assumes that human beings act rationally and that economic (material) well-being in itself is key in solving all major issues afflicting our world. We have focused on the biological and neglected the cultural; we assumed that satisfying basic needs to keep bodies functioning will keep people alive. In short, we looked at the body and overlooked the soul. Or as prominent Czech Economist Tomáš Sedláček framed it, “There were huge advances that were brought upon us thanks to science and also thanks to economics, but now I feel we are in a time where we see the limits of it. In the beginning, there was no analytics, just ethics. Today there is only analytics and no ethics.”
Gloria Benedikt (left) and Hussein Khadour (right) answer questions from young scientists at a dress rehearsal of their new performance, InDignity, at the Festspielhaus St. Poelten
There was a time when humanity was already closer in finding a balance between the two. It was called the Enlightenment. “The Enlightenment quest,” Wilson observed, “was driven by the belief that human beings can know all that needs to be known, and in knowing understand, and in understanding gain the power to choose more wisely than ever before.”
Then, for the next two centuries and to the present day, science and humanities went their own way. Complex reasons briefly summarized: albeit making good progress, scientists were nowhere close to meeting expectations and artists sought meaning in other more private venues.
Is there any value in resuming this quest of connecting arts and science now? Wilson argues that the answer is yes, “because enough is known today to make it more attainable than during its first flowering.” And yes, because the solutions of so many problems in modern life will depend on solutions for the clash of competing religions, the revival of moral reasoning and on adequate foundations of environmentalism.
So, how can this work in practice?
Gloria Benedikt and Mimmo Miccolis in GROWTH, Kennedy Center, Washington DC, July 2014 Photo: Morgan Marinoni
For starters we should be aware that there is a common foundation. Despite science and humanities being fundamentally different from each other in what they say and do, they are complementary to each other in origin, as they arise from the same creative process in the human brain. But there is more. “Good” science is data driven. Scientists are trained to present their findings in a neutral way. A scientist appealing to emotion is likely to be considered unprofessional.
Meanwhile, artists are masters of metaphors and of appealing to emotion. At the same time, the majority religiously avoids being explicit. “Good” art is not dogmatic. We prefer to leave it up to our audiences to find meaning for themselves.
In the past 150 years, we have seen that if we push our noble pursuits to the extreme, we risk losing our purpose because we lose our link to society. If people don’t understand how scientific findings matter to them and if artists are too scared or simply too wound up in their own world, and thus fail to articulate, our work falls short of its ultimate purpose: to serve society by revealing truths in the world around us so that people can make better-informed decisions on how to go about their work and lives and shape the direction of our planet and the over 7 billion people populating it.
Arts and science need to be free – in 2015, I believe this freedom lies in the ability to present our findings clearly and independently. This quest, coupled with a new sense of responsibility to communicate, is what can and should bring scientists and artists together in the coming years and decades. I, for one, am excited that IIASA has opened its doors for us to join hands so we can create a sustainable future together and perhaps fulfill Wilson’s vision of a second enlightenment along the way.
Please note: I use the terms ‘humanities’ and ‘arts’ interchangeably here. However the term humanities is of course technically broader, as it includes not only the creative arts, but also political theory & philosophy.
References
Wilson, Edward O. The meaning of Human Existence. New York: Norton & Company, 2014
Sedláček, Benedikt, Twaalfhoven. Arts Economics and the Irrational – A debate in 3 Acts. November 29th 2015. www.vimeo.com/120531313
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Aug 25, 2015 | Communication, Young Scientists
By Katherine Leitzell, IIASA Science Writer
Earlier this month, IIASA hosted an unusual guest—science journalist, blogger, and educator Andrew Revkin. Revkin is probably best-known for his work at the New York Times and the blog Dot.Earth. He also teaches at Pace University and has recently been involved in sustainability projects such as Future Earth.
At a lunchtime seminar on science communication, Revkin surprised many IIASA scientists by focusing primarily on new media, rather than on old-school models of press releases and interviews with journalists.
Old-school journalism is long gone. What’s replacing it is still developing – which brings opportunities for scientists willing to get into the game. (Photo: Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in the 1940 film His Girl Friday/ Public Domain)
The reason? The world of journalism is changing quickly. “The days of a reporter sitting down with a notebook and interviewing you for a story are over,” he said. There are fewer and fewer reporters specializing in science journalism and those who remain in the field have tighter deadlines and more to cover.
The good news is that researchers need not send out a press release and wait for a reporter to call them to share their story. Blogs, social media, and videos provide new channels for communication. Revkin argued that these channels may even form a better platform for communicating complicated, sticky subjects—like much IIASA research—than traditional news stories, which have a tendency to oversimplify information. A blog, in contrast to a news story, can examine a topic from multiple angles over a longer period of time, giving a “prismatic” view of a multifaceted problem.
Yet blogging and engaging on social media take time. How can a researcher fit communication in on top of already substantial workloads?
The answer is that you don’t have to. Not every scientist needs to engage the public all the time, but every institution should have channels and content to do so, and be able to help scientists to tell their stories.
Revkin, left, chats with participants in IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP) (Photo: K. Leitzell, IIASA)
Why bother? Some benefits of communication are clear: Research has shown that scholarly articles shared on twitter end up with more citations, and some journals are even using social media sharing, for example using altmetrics, as a new measure of study impact.
Taking control of communication using new media can also circuitously lead to coverage in traditional media. Journalists around the world use Twitter to research stories and find sources. Revkin explained that when researching his blog posts, he searches for posts by scientists that provide background and explanation. Then he links to these sources. In fact, today Revkin defines his role as more a curator of information than a journalist.
At the same time, by learning to write and communicate in an understandable way for the general public, and practicing this skill, researchers also hone important communication skills that can help them effectively engage with policymakers.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Aug 20, 2015 | Science and Policy
By Amanda Palazzo, IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program
If a company wants to build a car that is safe and reliable, they will test it in many ways. They will use wind tunnels and crash tests to identify potential weaknesses. Similarly, if policymakers want to develop the best policies possible, they need to know how they will look and succeed in several different, but realistic, possible futures. We call these futures, scenarios.
The CGIAR program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) has developed and used scenarios to guide policy formulation in six global regions (Eastern and Western Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Andes and Central America).
In July 2015, CCAFS facilitated a workshop with national partners from the government, private sector and civil society in Burkina Faso to review the development of National Plan for the Rural Sector (PNSR). They were joined by researchers from different CGIAR Research Programs (CRPs) interested in evaluating their research objectives using previously developed regional scenarios.
In a workshop in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in mid-July 2015, CGIAR researchers, government planners, private sector representatives and other national experts met. The goal: development of the new National Plan for the Rural Sector for Burkina Faso (PNSR) and the identification of research strategies to support this plan. The tool: scenario-guided planning. Photo: Kabore Herve.
This workshop was part of a broader process, started by CCAFS in 2012 in the ECOWAS region, to bring together people who work on topics of food security, the environment, and rural livelihoods to create a platform for crafting futures for how their region could develop. Stakeholders envisioned many distinct, plausible futures that each offer a mix of opportunities and challenges against which to test policies.
In workshops held before the Burkina Faso workshop, stakeholders outlined four scenarios, along two axes of uncertainty:
- The degree to which states or non-state actors play the dominant role in the development of the region;
- The degree to which short-term or long-term priorities dominate strategic agendas.
Four scenarios along two axes of uncertainty. Details>>
Agricultural development plays a leading role in all of these possible futures, because in many ECOWAS countries, including Burkina Faso, nearly a quarter of the national GDP comes from crop and livestock production. Reducing food insecurity is a challenge and understanding how improvements in crop production or livestock rearing will change the region’s demand for grassland and cropland is vital information. Yield improvements that increase the regional food supply and raise calorie consumption can be seen as a success. However, when the food supply increases through cutting down forests as a source for new agricultural land, this has long-term environmental consequences. It is important to identify such potential trade-offs.
We can use models, such as GLOBIOM and IMPACT, to tell the story of the scenarios and identify and measure trade-offs. Using our model, GLOBIOM, my IIASA colleagues and I provide insights into the development of the agriculture sector, improvements in food security, and the resulting land use change. Just as scenarios can gain credibility and become more relevant to the local realities by involving stakeholders at multiple levels, models can give credibility and consistency to the scenarios by using data and consistent representations of different systems (such as agricultural systems, for example, see this IIASA research). To model these scenarios, we used input from stakeholders and scenario storylines to identify multiple factors driving change in Western Africa and put numerical values to these drivers: GDP, population, improvement in crop and livestock yields, integration of regional markets, and limit to deforestation. For all the scenarios, we also consider the potential impacts on agriculture due to climate change. For some of the factors of change we used Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), developed partly by IIASA researchers, as an envelope of possibilities for future changes, because the SSPs are also socioeconomic scenarios that have considered many dimensions of change to look at the challenges the world may face in mitigating and adapting to a changing climate.
GLOBIOM, as a global model, covers future development not only for the ECOWAS region but also for the rest of the word, providing insights to how the region will be affected by forces outside its control, such as global markets and climate change, which can have profound effects on regional outcomes. We like to call this “globally consistent regional scenarios”.
After running the model we examined the results, such as agricultural area expansion and food availability, through the lens of the scenario narratives. Once the scenarios from our model results represent the future worlds the stakeholders envision we use the full scenarios (narratives and quantitative model results) with policymakers as a testing ground for potential policies, such as those used in the Burkina Faso workshop. Presenting modeling results can be challenging, but we have found ways to present engaging and informative quantitative scenarios, by focusing on the most useful information policymakers want to see for each scenario: regional socioeconomic growth and food security, development of crop and livestock sector under climate change, and changes in land use and deforestation. With successes like the workshop in Burkina Faso, where our scenarios, developed by local stakeholders and quantified by models, were well-received and useful for redeveloping the country’s PNSR as well as regional research objectives of the CGIAR, we see an example of how the IIASA goal of moving science into policy is being achieved.
References:
Havlík, Petr, Hugo Valin, Mario Herrero, Michael Obersteiner, Erwin Schmid, Mariana C Rufino, Aline Mosnier, et al. 2014. “Climate Change Mitigation through Livestock System Transitions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111 (10) (March 11): 3709–14. doi:10.1073/pnas.1308044111.
Leclère, D, P Havlík, S Fuss, E Schmid, A Mosnier, B Walsh, H Valin, M Herrero, N Khabarov, and M Obersteiner. 2014. “Climate Change Induced Transformations of Agricultural Systems: Insights from a Global Model.” Environmental Research Letters 9 (12) (December 1): 124018. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/9/12/124018. http://stacks.iop.org/1748-9326/9/i=12/a=124018?key=crossref.ede85e60c69b514efa057794c8e42d9c.
Müller, Christoph, and Richard D. Robertson. 2014. “Projecting Future Crop Productivity for Global Economic Modeling.” Agricultural Economics 45 (1) (January 10): 37–50. doi:10.1111/agec.12088. http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/agec.12088.
Palazzo, Amanda, Joost Vervoort, Petr Havlik, Daniel Mason-D’Croz, and S Islam. 2014. “Simulating Stakeholder-Driven Food and Climate Scenarios for Policy Development in Africa, Asia and Latin America: A Multi-Regional Synthesis.” Copenhagen, Denmark.
Rosegrant, Mark W, and IMPACT development Team. 2012. “International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) Model Description.”
Vervoort, J.M., A. Palazzo, D. Mason-D’Croz, P.J. Ericksen, P.K. Thornton, P. Kristjanson, W. Förch, et al. 2013. “The Future of Food Security, Environments and Livelihoods in Eastern Africa: Four Socio-Economic Scenarios.” 63.
Vervoort, Joost M., Philip K. Thornton, Patti Kristjanson, Wiebke Förch, Polly J. Ericksen, Kasper Kok, John S.I. Ingram, et al. 2014. “Challenges to Scenario-Guided Adaptive Action on Food Security under Climate Change.” Global Environmental Change 28 (March): 383–394. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.03.001. http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0959378014000387.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Aug 13, 2015 | Energy & Climate
By Sabine Fuss, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) and IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management Program
The Sleipner CCS plant in Norway was the world’s first commercial CO2 storage facility. Photo: Kjetil Alsvik/Statoil
Current strategies for limiting climate change to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels are centered around a shift towards less carbon-intensive technology, increases in energy efficiency, and changes in management and behavior.
This won’t be enough.
Global carbon dioxide concentrations have exceeded the benchmark of 400ppm, and it is clear that we’re headed for an overshoot. This means that to have a chance of stabilizing climate change below 2°C, we will actually need to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, thus achieving what we call “negative emissions.” This is even more evident when we look at continued population growth, our dependence on existing infrastructure in the near future, and rising living standards in many emerging regions.
In a session on negative emissions at this year’s CFCC conference in Paris jointly organized by members of the Global Carbon Project at IIASA, MCC and CSIRO, and CO2-GEONET, a group of leading international researchers discussed the need for negative emissions and the implications of large-scale removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, and took a closer look at the outstanding questions and uncertainties on the topic.
Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), and afforestation are two possibilities that could contribute to negative emissions, removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. © zlikovec |Dollar Photo Club
A wide range of possibilities – but many open questions
The IPCC’s AR5 scenarios show that negative emissions could be achieved by combining carbon-neutral Bioenergy with Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage (BECCS), but also through afforestation. Most of the ambitious climate stabilization pathways show that we would need BECCS by the middle of the century, even though the removed emissions would not outweigh the remaining positive emissions at that point, that is, we would not yet see net negative emissions.
More precisely, the most recent scenarios of Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) show that to achieve the 2°C limit, negative emissions of up to 13.2 GtCO2-eq./yr in 2100 are needed. This could be reached by BECCS, which might run into problems as competing for land with other demands, or a technology known as Direct Air Capture, which is more energy-intensive. Enhanced Weathering and afforestation might also deliver negative emissions, though of a smaller magnitude. However, all the presented negative emission technologies have their limits and none is a silver bullet. Clearly, there are more cards in the deck than just BECCS and we will have to aim for a portfolio respecting limits and trade-offs with other policy goals, but also opportunities and synergies.
One glaring clear point: negative emissions cannot be used to continue “business as usual” and then remove the bulk of the emissions mid-century. The required carbon flows would simply be too large. At the same time, such a high-emissions world would bring with it major environmental feedbacks, such as ocean acidification. Thus, negative emissions have to be understood as just one element of a mitigation portfolio complementing drastic GHG emission reductions in the near term.
While the large-scale use of biomass and its impacts have been at the center of bioenergy discussions for a while, CCS will also need to be scaled up to massive amounts of up to 25 GtCO2 per year by 2100. However, geology experts at the meeting were optimistic with respect to the storage potentials for these large amounts. The only challenge would be to find enough viable storage sites with assured capacity.
Other challenges include the need to investigate negative emission options that are not yet included in the AR5 scenarios, such as Enhanced Weathering, Direct Air Capture, and a method to improve CCS and BECCS with geothermal energy. How much the combined potential of these negative emissions options will indeed reduce temperatures also depends on the response of the climate system. However, two modelling teams presented new insights on reaction to overshoot, and negative emissions physically needed to keep global warming below 2°C.
While negative emissions are needed at large scale, many questions remain, which will need to be addressed very soon in order for scenarios meet reality. Communication must improve between scientists, politicians, practitioners, but also media and the public. Existing misunderstandings, for example, that negative emissions are just an excuse to continue on a business as usual pathway, or that negative emissions carry the same risks as geo-engineering, need to be resolved.
Read the full session report (PDF)
Sabine Fuss is leading the working group “Sustainable resource management and global change” at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) in Berlin and holds a guest affiliation with IIASA’s ESM program. She is co-leading (with D. v. Vuuren) the research initiative “MAnaging Global Negative Emission Technologies (MaGNET)” hosted at the GCP Tsukuba Office
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
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