CRC for Plant Biosecurity - David Cook

Communicating Uncertainty in Biosecurity Adaption - Final Report

CRICHTONA — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 04:21:40 +0000

Communicating Uncertainty in Biosecurity Adaption - Final Report

Fire blight simulation

CRICHTONA — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:20:32 +0000

A ‘war gaming’ workshop was held in Melbourne on 19 and 20 April, at which the spatial simulation model and the structured decision-making process developed by the Communicating Uncertainties in Biosecurity Adaption (CUBA) project were showcased, using the example of fire blight in the Goulburn Valley, Victoria.

The workshop was for one half of the CUBA project, which has been working towards a spatial incursion simulation model and a structured decision-making approach for Apple & Pear Australia Ltd. The other half of the project involves the Australian Banana Grower’s Council, and their interest in non-spatial models.

The workshop was attended by 24 people from across the industry. The attendees had an opportunity to work in small groups to manage a ‘virtual’ fire blight incursion in the Goulburn Valley using the model projected on to large touch screens. They could physically place initial infections, monitor detection and spread of infections, alter destruction and buffer zones, look at the effect of seasonal factors (i.e. blooming periods where honeybees are most active and can spread infections), and decide on overall strategies for short and long-term management (i.e. eradication, contain/slow the spread, or live with it).

They could also ‘shock’ the model at random times to represent a bad year in which the disease pressure (i.e. spread) was high. This was to give the effect of random adverse climatic conditions conducive to faster-than-average disease spread.

The project, as well as the overall goal of the workshop, was to improve the uptake of uncertain information using maps, as opposed to statistical models. When an event occurs in the ‘here and now’, decision-makers tend to have a lot of information about it, and therefore think of it in detail terms. But, when an event like a pest incursion is more distant into the future, decision makers have less available and reliable information about it, causing them to think in more abstract terms about it.

Furthermore, words and statistics carry the essence of the referent event, but pictures are concrete representations that carry the properties of an invasion event in full detail. Therefore, when a decision-making group is psychologically ‘near’ to an event, pictorial representations of it are more effective decision aids than words and statistics.

Generally, in terms of the war games against fire blight in the Goulburn Valley, it was found that incursions which occurred in relatively isolated patches of the Valley could be contained if they were detected early enough, even in high disease pressure periods. However, if infection was not detected early and occurred in areas with abundant apple and pear orchards, the disease could quickly take hold.

The CUBA project provides a virtual world in which incursion management hypotheses and strategies can be formulated, tested and embedded within incursion response plans. Here, a process of trial and error can be used because mistakes are costless. With time and further refinement, the lessons learned in this virtual world will pay dividends in real incursion management situations. The motto is ‘practice makes progress’, because we can never hope to be perfect.

The CUBA team is led by Dr David Cook (Senior Economist, DAFWA) and involves key researchers Dr Shuang Liu (Research Scientist, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences), Dr Jean-Philippe Aurambout (Senior GIS Scientist, DPI Victoria), Dr Oscar Villalta (Senior Research Scientist, DPI Victoria) and Dr Darren Kriticos (Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences).

Some pictures from the war games workshop:

Back to The Leaflet.

The Use of Spatial Models and Visual Interfaces in Invasive Plant Pest Risk Analysis and Decision-Making

CRICHTONA — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:35:23 +0000

The Use of Spatial Models and Visual Interfaces in Invasive Plant Pest Risk Analysis and Decision-Making

An integrated decision-support approach in prioritizing risks of non-indigenous species in the face of high uncertainty

CRICHTONA — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:19:59 +0000

An integrated decision-support approach in prioritizing risks of non-indigenous species in the face of high uncertainty

Estimating the social welfare effects of New Zealand apple imports

CRICHTONA — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:19:50 +0000

Estimating the social welfare effects of New Zealand apple imports

The decision maker’s dilemma, choosing between competing priorities

CRICHTONA — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:10:16 +0000

The decision maker’s dilemma, choosing between competing priorities

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Science Symposium

CRICHTONA — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:39:34 +0000

As a representative of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences and the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCPNB) project Communicating Uncertainties in Biosecurity Adaption (CRC10162), David Cook travelled to Ontario to take up an invitation to present at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) Science Symposium entitled Better Models - Better Assessments: The Use of Models in Plant Health and Biotechnology Risk Assessment. This symposium was hosted by the CFIA’s Plant and Biotechnology Risk Assessment Unit, and took place at the Lord Elgin hotel in Ottawa on 22-23 February 2011.

The two-day meeting presented an excellent opportunity to discuss the work being done by the CRCNPB with respect to the assessment and communication of risk to diverse government and community stakeholders. The paper David presented was well received, and during the panel session that followed he was pleasantly surprised by the interest shown in the research ideas he presented. Particular interest in the discussion and subsequent informal conversations surrounded the engagement of industry and government stakeholders in the risk analysis process via group decision-making methods, or structured decision-making.

Although the mixture of other invited presentations was diverse, David found the overall quality of presentations very high. He found the papers by Dr Denys Yemshanov (Natural Resources Canada - Canadian Forest Service), Prof. Mike Wilkinson (University of Aberystwyth) and Dr Scott Ferson (Applied Biomathematics) highly interesting and informative. David has heard Dr Ferson speak on a number of occasions and was delighted to have the opportunity to meet him after the session to discuss opinions of risk analysis involving quantitative methods. David discovered that they are both very interested in the way that uncertainty can invoke changes in the behaviour or preferences of a decision-making group, and undertook to further discussions subsequently with the view of collaborating on future research in this area.

Other presentations of note were presented by Dr Paul De Barro (CSIRO) regarding the dynamics and evolution of research projects from inception to delivery; Dr Phil McDonald (CFIA) who outlined the very effective risk assessment procedures in place in Canada and cooperation of stakeholder industries in maximising the benefits over time of biotechnologies; and Prof. Richard Mack (Washington State University) who outlined a multi-tiered nested sieve approach to weed risk assessment involving pre- and post-border components to reduce uncertainties involved in using traditional weed risk assessment approaches based on expert opinion. David said it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to meet Prof. Mack whose work he has admired and used extensively throughout his career.

CRC10162: Communicating Uncertainties in Biosecurity Adaption (CUBA)

CRICHTONA — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:28:03 +0000

Program

Preparedness and Prevention