PhD Study : Decision Analytic with Combined Data Driven Models and Domain Knowledge for Sustainable Land Management

Summary

Background and Challenges

Globally the agricultural sector is facing economic, environmental and social challenges in rapidly changing economic and policy settings. Therefore, there is an urgency to provide effective solutions for sustainable land management. Agricultural yields and environmental health in Northern Ireland are currently suboptimal and there are a number of scenarios following BREXIT that require urgent planning.

Due to the lack of a holistic information delivery system and decision support tool, a large amount of data, e.g. soil geochemistry and water quality collected by the public/private sectors, are not currently being used to their full potential. Furthermore, quantitative or ‘hard’ data have yet to be exploited to their full potential through effective combination with expert (scientists and farmers) knowledge and practical experience to assist future decision-making. Additionally, significant amounts of data, which could benefit local farmers, are not being gathered (for example soil analysis results) and there are plans to rectify this situation. Moreover, sustainable land management involves complex interactions of political, social, economic and physical factors operating at different scales and in time/space all of which require an effective modelling approach.

Aim and Objectives

This project will make an innovative contribution by introducing inter-disciplinary state of the art modelling and computational intelligence techniques to address the key challenges of sustainable land management. The aim of this PhD research project is, therefore, to develop and evaluate a smart land management decision support system for famers and decision makers consisting of three-levels of virtual mapping: geographical mapping, causal structure mapping and information mapping. This is aimed at capturing, measuring, formalising, evaluating and visualising the various inputs and their integration.

Specifically, the objectives of this project are to:

1.Explore and develop a novel and effective knowledge presentation and decision analytic framework that can handle diverse interactions and flows of information at different scales simultaneously in a scalable manner.

2.Create a transparent, user-friendly, smart land management decision support tool consisting of three-levels of virtual mapping for visualisation, manipulation, analysis and evaluation.

3.Validate the system by experiments on expert-based small-scale scenarios with known outcomes.

4.Explore and derive scenarios and conduct simultaneous forecasting and back casting for specific land management objectives in Northern Ireland.

Anticipated Outcomes/Impact

It is anticipated a smart (BREXIT-ready), user friendly, virtual land management online decision support tool will be developed to offer innovative solutions to (1) inform sustainable land policy; (2) help famers to make sustainable land management decisions; (3) provide support for policy decision making on land management in order that strategic policies can be decided efficiently based on a broad range of inputs. These inputs will include the physical structure of land management along with economic, social and environmental sustainability factors.

Research Team

This interdisciplinary project brings together expertise in decision analytics, information fusion and knowledge-based systems from the School of Computing, and in environment and land management from the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, along with a team of experienced researchers and managers in the GSNI and DAERA.

Essential criteria

Applicants should hold, or expect to obtain, a First or Upper Second Class Honours Degree in a subject relevant to the proposed area of study.

We may also consider applications from those who hold equivalent qualifications, for example, a Lower Second Class Honours Degree plus a Master’s Degree with Distinction.

In exceptional circumstances, the University may consider a portfolio of evidence from applicants who have appropriate professional experience which is equivalent to the learning outcomes of an Honours degree in lieu of academic qualifications.

Desirable Criteria

If the University receives a large number of applicants for the project, the following desirable criteria may be applied to shortlist applicants for interview.

• First Class Honours (1st) Degree
• Masters at 70%

Funding and eligibility

The University offers the following levels of support:

Department for the Economy (DFE)

The scholarship will cover tuition fees at the Home rate and a maintenance allowance of £19,000 (tbc) per annum for three years (subject to satisfactory academic performance).

This scholarship also comes with £900 per annum for three years as a research training support grant (RTSG) allocation to help support the PhD researcher.

• Candidates with pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, who also satisfy a three year residency requirement in the UK prior to the start of the course for which a Studentship is held MAY receive a Studentship covering fees and maintenance.
• Republic of Ireland (ROI) nationals who satisfy three years’ residency in the UK prior to the start of the course MAY receive a Studentship covering fees and maintenance (ROI nationals don’t need to have pre-settled or settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme to qualify).
• Other non-ROI EU applicants are ‘International’ are not eligible for this source of funding.
• Applicants who already hold a doctoral degree or who have been registered on a programme of research leading to the award of a doctoral degree on a full-time basis for more than one year (or part-time equivalent) are NOT eligible to apply for an award.

Due consideration should be given to financing your studies. Further information on cost of living