Stephen Frederick Bourne

Stephen Frederick Bourne (born March 1973) is a British civil engineer, hydrologist, and software designer. He is influential in the development of software to optimize natural resource management, (e.g., water, oil, power, electricity). He currently serves as a senior software developer and senior project manager with W.S. Atkins, a global engineering consultancy.

Decision Support Systems
In his role as software developer at http://northamerica.atkinsglobal.com/ Water Resources Technology group, Bourne designs and develops numerous decision support system software tools, or DSSs.

The aim of a decision support system is to synthesize data and information helpful to the user, or users, in making management, investment, or risk aversion decisions. Here are some examples:

DSS Example 1: Stock Selection If you’re interested in purchasing a stock, a good DSS will present you: 1) A list of expert opinions on what the stock will do in the coming decade given company fundamentals, market analysis, stock quantitative analysis, and so on, 2) A quantitative forecast of the stock price for the next several years that is based on a) past performance of the company when in conditions similar to the current conditions, b) past performance of other similar companies when in similar conditions to current conditions, and c) forecasts of market moving forces. This forecast will include uncertainty in its estimation process, so that it can tell you the possible best and worst case scenarios. 3) A quantitative assessment of risk if you decided to buy the stock. This will include probabilities that you will lose your investment. 4) A way to assign weights to each of the factors presented and roll up all information into a final score for the stock that is tuned to your risk appetite, and expected reward for buying the stock. All of this information is necessary in order to make an informed decisions. A DSS will bring you all of this information, and present in a simple to understand way to make the DSS user experience valuable.

DSS Example 2: Deciding what to do with the vacant lot on the corner. The stock price example focused on a decision to be made by one individual. What if more than one person – stakeholder - is involved? What if the stakeholders have different things they are interested in? Then, the DSS must consider the options from the perspective of multiple criteria. Say, in a neighborhood, there is a vacant lot. The owner of the lot, Mr. Smith, just passed away and willed the lot to the home owners association (HOA). One member of the HOA wants to convert the lot into a park with swings and a pool for the neighborhood kids. Another wants to sell the lot for the highest bid and split the profits among the homeowners. Another wants to convert the lot to a retail establishment with a grocery store. Yet another wants to convert the lot back to nature, to preserve the environment. These are opposing objectives, and each stakeholder has an equal say as to what is to happen to the lot. A DSS can help in this case because it allows the homeowners to measure each of the options they propose against many objective criteria, such as: 1) how much money they each will receive, 2) benefit to their kids, 3) benefit to the environment, 4) reduction in travel time to the stores, and 5) change in property value. With these measurements in hand for each of the proposed options, they are in a much better position to vote on which option to proceed with.

DSSs have been developed in financial, engineering, science, socio-economic, recreational, transportation, and many other contexts.

Ice Roads, Estuaries, Power Grids, Water Budgets and Gravel Trenches
Significant DSSs that Bourne has worked on include:

North Slope Decision Support System. This DSS is a web based tool that allows multiple stakeholders to collective plan the route of ice roads on the North Slope of Alaska. Used primarily for oil exploration and extraction, ice roads provide the most environmentally sustainable method for transportation on the North Slope. Their construction is subject to up to 23 permits from multiple regulatory agencies. Transparency in the planning process is essential to ensure mutually acceptable ice roads are built in cost-effective ways. The NSDSS is a U.S. Dept. of Energy funded grant project. See http://nsdss.ine.uaf.edu/literature.html for more detail.

Analytical Framework for Coastal and Estuarine Study (ACES). With continued development in coastal environments, ongoing assessment of their health is important. This assessment is difficult due to complex geomorphology, hydrodynamics, and biogeochemistry, which have been traditionally tackled with commensurately complex supercomputer-based modeling techniques. While these technologies provide useful results, their computational, intellectual, and financial expenses render them unavailable to most coastal professionals. In a pioneering effort to meet this need, ACES was developed to support estuarine and coastal studies by a team of academic, governmental, and industry experts. ACES is composed of 1) a GIS-based database of spatial and temporal data that describe the environment, and 2) an accompanying ESRI ArcMap-based toolset employing first-principles modeling tools. Using ACES, estuarine bulk parameters related to shape, residence time, and flushing potential can be derived. Using regression and other approaches, the influence of tide and terrestrial drainage on estuarine water quality can be assessed. The ACES framework has been built through a development process driven by real-world application and can be expanded into many arenas of estuarine study.

Climate Change Research
Bourne has developed several methods for forecasting climate change and assessing its impact. A key element of his climate science work includes storm forecasting. The StormCaster project introduced a new method for forecasting rainfall at small time steps (15- or 60-minutes) using General Circulation Models (GCM) projections and historic rainfall. StormCaster can be applied in any location where data is available, and helps flood managers understand how the 100 year storm will change in the future due to climate change.

Early life
Born to Vivian Charmaine Bourne (née Stines) and Harold Bourne. Two brothers: Alec Wesley Bourne (2/3/1971) and David Geoffrey Bourne (6/20/1974). Lived in Alsager.

At two, he moved to Bermuda. He lived in Bermuda until 9/1993, when he matriculated into Southern College of Technology (now Southern Polytechnic State University). See education section below.

Education

 * 1985-1990: Saltus Grammar School, Bermuda
 * 1990-1994: Bermuda Department of Public Works, Plumbing Apprentice
 * 1992-1994: University of Maryland, University College, Bermuda
 * 1994-1995: Southern Polytechnic University
 * 1996-1997: Georgia Institute of Technology, BCE with highest honors (4.0)
 * 1997-1999: Georgia Institute of Technology, MS in Civil Engineering (3.9)
 * 1999-2005: Georgia Institute of Technology, PhD student and Civil Engineering Research Associate