*Call for chapter proposals - Proposal Submission Deadline: December 15, 
2009: Agricultural and Environmental Informatics, Governance, and 
Management: Emerging Research Applications
*A book edited by Zacharoula Andreopoulou, Basil Manos, Nico Polman, 
Davide Viaggi

To be published by IGIGlobal: 
http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=746

>  Introduction
Agricultural and environmental governance and management issues 
emphasize on unclear decision and risk analysis for management, 
mathematical methods for systems modelling and optimization, 
agricultural and environmental statistics and applications, agricultural 
and environmental data and data management, ecological modelling and 
assessment, simulation, optimization, and control of waste treatment and 
pollution reduction processes, agricultural and environmental GIS, RS 
and other spatial information technologies, monitoring techniques of 
quality, artificial intelligence and expert systems for agricultural and 
environmental applications. Sustainable development has increasingly 
become a major overall goal of national governments, EU, transnational 
networks, NGOs, and so forth. The governance of natural resources has to 
face the increased multiplicity of connections between different 
environmental aspects and decisions of local, regional, national, and 
supranational relevance, with high coordination and exchange between 
administrative entities and actors across the public/private and the 
expert/stakeholder divide.

In that general context, informatics can play a keyrole while 
implementing governance and management, either at a local, national, 
international, or transnational level. Environmental and agricultural 
informatics can be defined as research and system development focusing 
on the environmental and agricultural sciences relating to the creation, 
collection, storage, processing, modelling, interpretation, display, and 
dissemination of data and information. Environmental and agricultural 
research, impact assessment, planning and management have grown 
increasingly reliant on computer-based approaches in the past few 
decades. Geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, statistic 
and dynamic simulation modeling, for example, are utilized in a variety 
of scientific and professional endeavors, ranging from forestry, 
landscape mapping, and watershed ecology to pollution detection and geology.

The discipline of informatics can support tools and techniques aiming to 
produce high quality environmental and agricultural information 
resources, in usable formats, to serve the needs of individuals, 
communities, and organizations at all levels, and also decision support 
tools and environments. Information resources and agricultural decision 
support tools can be used by faculty, extension agents, and the broader 
agricultural production communities. Informatics, environmental decision 
support tools, and data resources can be applied to a wide range of 
environmental management applications. Network technologies can 
integrate geospatial technologies aiming to sustain environmental 
observation networks and mission-critical agricultural and environmental 
applications can be deployed. Environmental Informatics emphasizes not 
only the methods and skills of using computational and analytical 
techniques to solve environmental problems, but also the science and 
societal issues behind those problems. In a global context, 
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) created by natural or legal 
persons with no participation or representation of any government, 
exploit widely informatics, as globalization has turned the Internet 
into a key-point middleware.

For the aforementioned reasons, a need exists for an edited collection 
of articles in this area.

>  Objective of the Book
This book will aim to provide relevant theoretical frameworks and the 
latest empirical research findings in the area. The core aim of the 
proposed book is to present the latest results of the relevant research, 
either in its pure theoretical aspects or in applied instances; such a 
book can serve as an excellent dissemination tool for highly specialized 
ICT governance issues like those of the agricultural, natural resources, 
and environmental sector. The book also aims to integrate knowledge, 
both across disciplines and between science, policy, and the public, 
regarding the way to obtain practical results within international 
relations and global governance structures.

The use of new theories, technologies, models, methods, conceptual 
frameworks, techniques, and principles are emphasized. Both researchers 
and practitioners are invited to share their experiences and discuss 
novel approaches to agricultural, environmental, natural resource, 
biodiversity governance, and the interconnections between such areas, 
considering the multi-level context and trying to provide insights 
beyond the individual cases. Extensive case studies of effective 
applications within agriculture, natural resources and the environment 
can well contribute to the overall objectives of the book.

>  Target Audience
As the book will introduce the new information technologies deployed in 
governance and management in agriculture, natural resources, and 
environment, and will demonstrate agricultural and environmental case 
studies of these with beneficial results and implementations in an 
edited book, it is expected to attract the interest of many academic 
researchers and practicing professionals in IT and ICT based governance 
and management issues around the world.

Academics and students will be able to use such a book as a 
state-of-the-art reference book for agricultural and environmental 
applications of the informatics technologies. As the techniques applied 
in these applications can be extended and applied to other areas as 
well, researchers from disciplines like economics, marketing, Web 
developers, database management technicians, can gain as well. 
Governance institutes and stakeholders of different levels can 
especially gain from practices and experiences applied by their 
counterparts in different parts of the world, thus improving their 
effectiveness.

Recommended topics for chapter proposal include, but are not limited to, 
the following:

- ICT governance
- natural resources governance
- governance of agricultural resources
- management of agricultural resources
- environmental, natural resources, and ecosystems management
- multi-level environmental governance
- multi-level governance of water
- biodiversity governance
- EU Water Framework application
- Natura 2000 application
- e-government in agriculture
- environmental e-government
- sustainable management and “green” management
- farm regional management
- ICT adoption in farm management
- ICT for environmental management
- NGO and international governance
- governance and globalization
- Internet governance

Empirical studies and case studies, trends and perspectives are highly 
welcome.

Authors are encouraged to consider both the technical (e.g. informatics 
design) and functional (e.g. costs and effectiveness) of the tools 
considered in their papers.

>  Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before 
December 15, 2009, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the 
mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Proposal authors 
will be notified by January 15, 2010 about the status of their proposals 
and, if accepted, they will receive chapter guidelines. Full chapters 
are expected to be submitted by March 15, 2010. All submitted chapters 
will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled 
to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of 
the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference) and 
“Medical Information Science Reference” imprints. For additional 
information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com.

Important Dates:
- December 15, 2009: Chapter Proposal Submission Deadline
- January 15, 2010: Notification of Chapter Proposal Acceptance
- March 15, 2010: Full Chapter Submission
- June 15, 2010: Review Result Returned
- July 15, 2010: Final Revised Chapter Submission
- August 15, 2010: Final Deadline

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically only (Word 
document) to
Zacharoula S. Andreopoulou
E-mail: randreop(a)for.auth.gr