Contact
Tomas Thierfelder, Assoc. Professor Department of Energy and Technology, SLU tomas.thierfelder@slu.se, +46 18 -67 17 93, +46 (0)70 1720472
Environmetrics and Geoinformatics
Last changed: 05 November 2021
Research within Biometry with special emphasis on Environmetrics and Geoinformatics is following two main tracks; classic Biometry and Environmetrics/Geoinformatics.
- Environmental and geo-related statistics
- Inferential methods regarding biological/ecological systems and processes
- Inferential methods regarding landscape systems and processes
- Geographical information systems (GIS)
- Environmental change in the Northern Polar region
- Informatics infrastructures for large-scale environmental survey
- Web-based decision-support systems
What is Environmetrics and Geoinformatics?
Our research within Biometry, esp. Environmetrics and Geoinformatics, is following two main tracks; classic Biometry and Environmetrics/Geoinformatics. In Biometry, statistical methodologies for hypothesis-testing and inference are adapted to the requirements of selected application areas. Biometry is philosophical by nature, since it explores how well nature can be known provided a limited amount of information.
Actually, most biometricians consider their subject to be at the heart of empirical science, since hypothetic-deductive science may be defined by formal hypothesis-testing. Typical application areas involve biotic as well as abiotic landscape processes, like the fate of aquatic solutes (mainly nutrients) as they are being transported through landscapes, lakes, and coastal regions, the effect of pesticides on microbial ecosystems and insect communities, the compositional change of bird species within the agricultural landscape, the behavior of social animals, and climate effects on the incidence and geographic spread of Nordic infectious disease.
Within the subject of environmental and geo-related informatics, our studies focus on how technical development regarding information-supply affects the prospects of understanding large-scale environmental change. The work is mainly focusing on Northern Polar environments, but also on the apple orchards of southern Sweden.
Typical application areas are the development of web-based infrastructures for national as well as international communication across terrestrial research- and monitoring field-stations (SITES and INTERACT), international web-based infrastructures in support of strengthened societal awareness regarding climate sensitive infectious diseases (CLINF), and web-based decision support systems för integrated pest management of Swedish apple orchards. We apply very agile methods for system development, together with a true systems perspective.