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Frontiers of Engineering Reports on Leading-Edge Engineering from the 2009 Symposium (2010) / Chapter Skim
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Computational Sustainability: Computational Methods for a Sustainable Environment, Economy, and Society--Carla P. Gomes
Pages 27-40

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From page 27...
... Making such decisions optimally, or nearly optimally, presents significant computational challenges that will require the efforts of researchers in computing, information science, and related disciplines, even though environmental, economic, and soci etal issues are not usually studied in those disciplines. In this author's opinion, it is imperative that computer scientists, information scientists, and experts in operations research, applied mathematics, statistics, and related fields pool their talents and knowledge to help find efficient and effective ways of managing and allocating natural resources.
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From page 28...
... BIODIvERSITY AND SPECIES CONSERvATION The reduction and fragmentation of natural habitats as a result of deforesta tion, agriculture, urbanization, and land development is a leading cause of species decline and extinction. One strategy for improving the chances of species viability is to protect habitats by creating biologically valuable sites or reserves.
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From page 29...
... supports several cyber-infrastructure initiatives for massive data collection and data analysis based on largescale autonomous sensor networks, such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and the Long-Term Ecological Research Network (LTER)
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From page 30...
... . Complex dynamical models, originally developed as part of dynamical systems theory, can be used to identify the optimal amount of fish that can be harvested annually in a certain fishery, taking into consideration re-genera tion rates, carrying capacity of the habitat, discount rates, and other parameters.
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From page 31...
... Ultimately, these models will help policy makers predict the effects of poten tial policy interventions and environmental changes, with the goal of improving the livelihoods of thousands of pastoralists. The project involves new technical approaches to large, structural-dynamic, discrete-choice problems that will lead to the development of computational models to support both descriptive studies and predictive policy analyses (Toth et al., 2009)
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From page 32...
... For example, consumers will have smart meters that can track energy consumption, monitor individual power circuits in the home, control smart appliances, and actively manage energy use. Planning and operating such a large, complex digital ecosystem will require technological advances in computing and information science related to sensing and measuring technologies, advanced control methods, monitoring and respond ing to events, support for dynamic pricing, computational aspects of game-theory models and mechanism design, multi-agent based models, improved interfaces, decision-support and optimization tools, and security and privacy tools.
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From page 33...
... in renewable energy sources, such as biofuels and biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind power. For example, EISA set fuel economy standards for vehicles that will require the production of 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels per year by 2022, a fivefold increase over current ethanol production levels.
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From page 34...
... THE RESEARCH CHALLENGES Research in computational sustainability involves many different areas in computing, information science, and related disciplines. Figure 2 shows some of the areas that are closely related to examples in this article and to the ICS research agenda (ICS, 2010)
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From page 35...
... The key research challenges are developing realistic
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From page 36...
... Research in this new field is necessarily interdisciplinary, requiring that scientists with complementary skills work together. In fact, collaboration is an essential aspect of the new science of computational sustainability, an interdisciplinary field that applies techniques from computer science, information science, opera tions research, applied mathematics, statistics, and related fields to help balance environmental, economic, and societal needs for a sustainable future.
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From page 37...
... Pp. 16–28 in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on the Integration of AI and OR Techniques Constraint Programming, Brussels, Belgium.
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From page 38...
... 2009. Sustainable Operation and Management of Data Center Chillers using Temporal Data Mining.
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From page 39...
... Available online at http:// www.unep.org/geo/. WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development)
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Key Terms

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  • sustainable future
  • wind power
  • constraint programming
  • computational challenges

  • energy consumption
  • increasing energy
  • wireless sensor
  • balance environmental
  • natural disasters

  • conservation corridors
  • computer scientists
  • techniques constraint
  • help balance
  • related fields

  • computer sci
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  • common future
  • world business
  • highly dynamic


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