36 AI MAGAZINE It might be thought that artificial intelligence techniques or other types of computational methods are irrelevant in countries with few technological resources. As just one example of the possibilities, however, take road traffic in cities. The chaotic and spectacular road congestion that is characteristic of developing-world cities is a microcosm of opportunities for applying A...

Consider the problem of protecting endangered species by selecting patches of land to be used for conservation purposes. Typically, the availability of patches changes over time, and recommendations must be made dynamically. This is a challenging prototypical example of a sequential optimization problem under uncertainty in computational sustainability. Existing techniques do not scale to probl...

SUMMER 2014 31 Ecological processes that occur at global scales are among the most impressive natural phenomena on Earth; they link environments across the globe and capture the imagination of observers. For example, billions of North American birds, representing more than 400 species, migrate annually, often thousands of miles, frequently under the cover of darkness, between breeding and nonbr...

Sustainability increasingly becomes an effective argument in the public and academic discourse. However, in the scientific design process of IT artifacts, the notion of sustainability is often misused. IT artifacts and consequences resulting from their operation are characterized to be sustainable without truly reflecting the meaning of the characteristics of sustainability. By subscribing to a...

This introductory chapter provides definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, decoupling, and related terms; gives an overview of existing interdisciplinary research fields related to ICT for Sustainability, including Environmental Informatics, Computational Sustainability, Sustainable HCI, and Green ICT; introduces a conceptual framework to structure the effects of ICT on sustaina...

Considering water resource scarcity and uncertainty in climate and demand futures, decision-makers require techniques for sustainability analysis in resource management. Through unclear definitions of “sustainability”, however, traditional indices for resource evaluation propose options of limited flexibility by adopting static climate and demand scenarios, limiting analysis variables to a part...

Sustainability has become a popular notion in current environmental policy analysis. Various definitions of this concept can be found in the literature. Analytically, the notion is relevant in the integration of socio-economie developments with environmental effects in order to obtain insight into (potential) environmental conflicts. Important in the operationalization of sustainability is the ...

There are contrasting ways to understand the Web: as global technical infrastructure, the largest ever information construct, and as social new media. Existing communities of ICT for sustainability, such as environmental informatics, Green ICT, and even the more recent sustainable HCI, tend to focus on engineering and the individual user. However, the Web’s full potential to advance environment...

The majority of sustainability assessments of the bio based industries are primarily focused on the environmental and economic aspects, while social impacts are rarely considered. While overlooking social dimension can have a serious harmful impact across supply chains. To address this issue, this study proposes a modified systemic approach for a social sustainability impact assessment of the te...