Uncertainty Analysis

I use techniques developed in engineering, computing science, artificial intelligence and risk assessment to address the treatment of multiple sources of uncertainty in conservation and ecology. Uncertainty is prevalent in science, particularly in conservation biology and wildlife management where policy and decision-making play important roles. The most appropriate treatment of uncertainty depends on its source and the failure to deal with uncertainty appropriately can lead to misleading, or false, conclusions. The interdisciplinary fields of engineering and computing science have developed a myriad of tools to deal with uncertainty that have direct and immediate applications in conservation and ecological risk assessment. I have investigated, compared and utilised a range of methods for the treatment of different types of uncertainty in a variety of problems in ecology and conservation biology. These treatments include:

• Dependency bounds convolution for convolutions of random variables with uncertain dependency structure (applications: soil screening levels for wildlife;risk assessment of chemical effects to wildlife)
• Probability bounds analysis for probability distributions with uncertain shape and parameter values (applications: food web exposure models; ecological risk assessment)
• Interval analysis when only the bounds of an uncertain quantity are known (application: calculation of global extinction rates)
• Fuzzy set theory for the treatment of vagueness in endangered species concepts

Relevant papers

Hayes, K., H.M. Regan, M.A. Burgman, and S. Ferson. Uncertainty Analysis. In A. Kapuscinski, L. Sifa, K. Hayes (eds.) Environmental Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Organisms, Volume 3: Building Scientific Capacity for Transgenic Fish in Developing Countries (in press).

Halpern B.S., H.M. Regan, H.P. Possingham, M.A. McCarthy. Accounting for uncertainty in marine reserve design. Ecology Letters, 9:2-11, 2006.

Halpern B.S., H.M. Regan, H.P. Possingham, M.A. McCarthy. Rejoinder: uncertainty and decision making. Ecology Letters 9(1):13-14, 2006.

Regan, H.M., Y. Ben-Haim, B. Langford, W.G. Wilson, P. Lundberg, S.J. Andelman, and M.A. Burgman. Robust decision making under severe uncertainty for conservation management. Ecological Applications, 15(4):1471-1477, 2005.

Regan, H.M., S. Ferson and D. Berleant. Equivalence of methods for uncertainty propagation of real-valued random variables. International Journal of Approximate Reasoning. 36(1):1-30, 2004.

Regan, H.M., H.R. Akçakaya, S. Ferson, K.V. Root, S. Carroll and L.R. Ginzburg. Treatments of uncertainty and variability in ecological risk assessment of single-species populations. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, 9(4):889-906, 2003.

Regan, H.M., B.K. Hope, and S. Ferson. Analysis and portrayal of uncertainty in a food web exposure model. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, 8(7):1757-1777, 2002.
Awarded Ecological Risk Assessment Paper of Year 2002 in Journal of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment

Elith, J., M.A. Burgman and H.M. Regan. Mapping epistemic uncertainty and vague concepts in predictions of species' distribution. Ecological Modelling, 157:313-329, 2002.

Regan, H.M., B.E. Sample, and S. Ferson. Deterministic and Probabilistic Ecological Soil Screening Levels for Wildlife. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 21(4):882-890, 2002.

Regan, H.M., M. Colyvan, and M.A. Burgman. A taxonomy and treatment of uncertainty for ecology and conservation biology. Ecological Applications, 12(2):618-628, 2002.

Colyvan, M., H.M. Regan, and S. Ferson. Is it a crime to belong to a reference class?, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 9(2):168-181, 2001.
Also reprinted in H. Kyburg and M. Thalos (eds.) Probability is the Very Guide in Life, Open Court, Chicago, pp. 331-347, 2003.

Regan, H.M., R. Lupia, A.N. Drinnan and M.A. Burgman. The currency and tempo of extinction. The American Naturalist, 157(1):1-10, January 2001.
Highlighted in Scientific American, 285(5):40-49 Nov 2001 and The Age, 10th Oct 1998.

Regan, H.M., and M. Colyvan. Fuzzy Sets and Threatened Species Classification, Conservation Biology, 14(4):1197-1199, August 2000.

Regan, H.M., M. Colyvan and M.A. Burgman. A Proposal for Fuzzy IUCN Categories and Criteria, Biological Conservation, 92(1):101-108, 2000.

Go back to lab homepage