Editorial

Abstract

Since 1995, the Resource Modeling Association (RMA) has organized the World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling (WCNRM), an annual meeting that brings together scientists, stakeholders and students interested in the mathematical modeling of renewable and exhaustible resources. For the first time in South America, and just before the pandemic began, WCNRM was held in January 2020 in Valparaíso, Chile, organized by the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María and the Universidad de Chile. Participants from 20 countries presented novelties on different topics related to natural resources and specifically on the conference theme: “Decision support methods for natural systems at risk.” This special issue collects a selection of papers and ideas presented during WCNRM 2020. Topics covered in this collection include: A modeling approach for evaluating the interplay between global warming and body size in fish stocks, providing important messages to mid‐ and long‐term if current temperature trends continue; A probabilistic model for detecting locations at risk from human‐ transported pathogens, methodology that can be applied to a wide class of problems, and it is illustrated with a very nice example on the sudden oak death; A crop choice model for estimating future returns from the irrigated land under different scenarios, concluding that financial and technical assistant to farmers for conserving groundwater would be sustainable and efficient from a cost–benefit viewpoint, conclusion obtained from a case study on the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer; A dynamical model for a terrestrial ecosystem whose analysis shows how biodiversity conservation can reduce infectious diseases; A generalization of a multivariate spatial variables methodology to provide a common effective sample size when all variables have been measured at the same locations, with concrete applications such as a soil contamination data set; A quantitative analysis of an epidemiological model of HIV/AIDS using Bayesian inference, for which the basic reproductive number was estimated based on the estimation of the model parameters; And the characterization of the set of robust sustainable thresholds for a discrete‐time controlled dynamic system, which provides useful information to users and decision‐makers as it illustrates the trade‐offs between the achievement of different objectives in fishery management. We would like to thank the authors who submitted their papers to this special issue and all the reviewers for their invaluable job during these unusual pandemic times. We are also indebted to the Editor‐in‐Chief, Shandelle Henson, for her support during the whole process.