This Technical Committee on Hydrologic Uncertainty seeks to improve how uncertainty is evaluated and measured by scientists in the Hydrology section of AGU, and to improve how uncertainty is communicated within and beyond the hydrology section. The technical committee maintains a log site at http://aguhu.blogspot.com/ for communication and evolution of scientific sessions. Hydrologists use uncertainty concepts and measures in many ways, from testing theories against data to providing regulators with defensible quantification of uncertainties associated with sometimes controversial environmental problems (e.g., sustainability, integrated water resources management, climate impacts, carbon sequestration, hydrofracking, and waste disposition). Issues of interest include how uncertainties (in data and model structures, parameters, and driving forces) are represented, evaluated, and reduced; uncertainty quantification in risk analysis and decision support; and how legal structures do and do not integrate the reality of uncertainty. Of interest are probabilistic and non-probabilistic metrics used to evaluate model responses, judge models against data, rank alternative models and test hypotheses; sensitivity analyses used to unravel sources of uncertainty; data collection strategies optimized for uncertainty reduction; and novel ideas not yet considered. As uncertainty is a cross-cutting issue, the Hydrology Section Uncertainty Technical Committee coordinates with other sections of AGU to include the notion of uncertainty in their research fields. This interdisciplinary and quantitative focus provides fruitful opportunities for conducting collaborative research with broader funding opportunities. It is one of the critical missions of the committee to foster interdisciplinary research for uncertainty analysis and to use uncertainty analysis as a vital tool for advanced understanding and bridging multiple disciplines.

Welcome to the blog site developed by Dr. Vesselinov at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Hydrology Uncertainty Committee (http://hydrology.agu.org/committees/) of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) would like to use this blog site for information exchange, group discussion, and whatever communication with and outside of the hydrology uncertainty committee. Should you have any questions, please contact Ming Ye (mye@fsu.edu; 850-644-4587), who is serving as the Hydrology Committee Chair. Thanks.

Session at AGU Fall Meeting 2014

Session at AGU Fall Meeting 2014

Uncertainty and Sensitivity in Models and Observations and Their Impacts on Decision Making Related to Geological, Hydrological, and Environmental Applications

Chairs
Ray Anderson
USDA-ARS, U.S. Salinity Laboratory
Velimir Vesselinov
LANL

CMWR 2014

June 10-13, 2014

Session: Optimization, uncertainty analysis and decision making

Conveners: Sergey Oladyshkin, Velimir V Vessilinov

Description: Environmental management deals with one of the largest and most important classes of complex dynamic systems. Real-world environmental management problems require an integrated systems approach that incorporates robust and defensible tools for model optimization, uncertainty analysis and decision making. Environmental management is frequently influenced by controversial and politically charged issues such as climate changes, carbon sequestration, hydro fracturing, gas and oil exploration, in-situ mining, waste disposition, etc. These problems involve interactions and feedbacks between various processes and represent uncertainty at multiple levels and scales (temporal and spatial). For this reason, society needs a better understanding of the environment in order to have an efficient and safe interaction for the sake of maximized welfare and sustainability in resources management. This session will explore how conceptual and data uncertainties are represented and evaluated, how optimization techniques are applied to reduce uncertainties through data collection and model analyses, and how uncertainty quantification in coupled with risk analysis and decision support. Of interest are probabilistic and non-probabilistic metrics used to judge models against data, rank alternative models and test hypotheses; sensitivity analyses used to unravel sources of uncertainty; and data collection strategies optimized for uncertainty reduction. This session solicits abstracts proposing innovative approaches and demonstrations of new or current methods related to complex environmental management problems.

INTERPORE 2014, Milwaukee

Minisymposium on UQ

MS 5.2: Uncertainty quantification in Porous Media: From pore scale to the field scale 

Organized by Matteo Icardi, Quan Long, Daniel Tartakovsky

Participants:

• L. J. Durlofsky: Data assimilation using reduced-order geological representations
• V. Vesselinov: From pore-scale processes to field- scale contaminant remediation
• M. Borges: A novel uncertainty quantification framework for subsurface flows coupled with geomechanics
• A. Jan: A Bayesian framework for the validation of a model for the simulation of CO2 sequestration in saline formations
• T. Xu: A fully Bayesian approach for calibration and uncertainty quantification of groundwater flow models with structural error
• B. Saad: Multilevel Monte Carlo for CO2 storage in porous media

Gender balance in hydrology

Original post

AGU Technical Committee on Uncertainty - membership

AGU Technical Committee on Hydrologic Uncertainty membership is posted at http://hydrology.agu.org/committees.html