Welcome!

The Fisheries and Environmental Management Group (FEM) focuses on the interaction between ecosystems and human society. Our research interests are

• Decision analysis of renewable resources and biodiversity
• Identification and quantification of risks in the use of natural resources
• Integrating different sources of data and knowledge: Bayesian analysis
• Cross discplinary modelling of exploitation processes of natural resources in the face of risks and uncertainty in the information

The leader of the group is professor Sakari Kuikka. The group works at two locations, in Viikki campus in Helsinki and in Kotka Maritime Research Center in Kotka.

The FEM group co-operates with governmental research organizations such as FGFRI and SYKE, as well research groups and organizations such as the Environmental Geoinformatics Group, Helsinki University of Technology, Fisheries Economics in the Department of Economics and Management, and Kotka Maritime Research Centre.

Current

• The BAYES consortium (FEM group and Bayesian statistic Group) was rewarded in the International evaluation of research and doctoral training at the University of Helsinki. BAYES was fourth in the panel of natural sciences and third in the Category 5 Societal impact. The MNCS indicator (describing the relative citation of group's publications) was 2.27, which was the ninth of all evaluated groups. The overall report can be found here and the group specific report here.


• Final seminar of IBAM project May 25th 2012 at Finnish Environmental Institute (SYKE). The keynote speaker of the IBAM seminar is Dr Tony Smith. He is, together with Dr Keith Sainsbury, the winner of Kungsfenan - The Swedish Seafood Award prize, for their research to help consumers to make informative choices. Check the full program here. Sign up to the seminar by contacting kirsi.rannasmaa@ymparisto.fi.


• 2.-4.7.2012 Jarno Vanhatalo gives a talk in Uncertainty in Computer Models Conference 2012 with title "Probabilistic calibration of 3D-ecosystem model in Gulf of Finland".
• Päivi Haapasaari will defend her thesis on 4th of May 2012. Her subject is Addressing human-induced uncertainty in fisheries management - social scientific and interdisciplinary solutions using Bayesian belief networks. Read the whole thesis here.
• 26.4.2012 Jarno Vanhatalo gives a talk in Viikki Campus post doc days with title "Probabilistic Forecasting in Environmental Management".
• Prof. Sakari Kuikka is invited keynote speaker with title Using policy impact predictions of integrated modelling in land and water management - lessons learned in CIENS research seminar: Eutropia project, in Oslo, Norway.
• Dr. Samu Mäntyniemi will be one of the teachers in ICES training course: Introduction to Bayesian Inference in Fishery Science, 11-15 June 2012, Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Dr. Jarno Vanhatalo is one of the speakers in the Finnish Mathematics Days. The title of his talk is "Recent solutions to computational challenges with Gaussian process models"

Past news and activities are here.

Open positions

• We are now looking for a researher with fixed term contract to work in multidiciplinary project in Kotka unit. Check details here (in Finnish).