The 4th International Conference on Integrating GIS and Environmental Modeling (GIS/EM4) will be convened September 2-8, 2000 at the Banff Centre for Conferences at Banff, Alberta, Canada. The metabolism of the fourth meeting will be similar to that of the previous three held at irregular intervals in the last ten years (Boulder, Breckenridge, and Santa Fe). But rather than simply continuing a conference series, each of these meetings has been created as an individual enterprise. Each has responded to a strong desire by participants to continue the work of the conference as a collaborative event; as an independent consortium of individuals and institutions; and as a means to learn about and define research opportunities and needs in a cross-disciplinary forum. The program for GIS/EM4 (too follow) will be similar to previous conferences in that each day will begin with seminal keynote talks followed by concurrent presentation sessions and it will feature demonstrations, posters, and workshops spanning five days. But it will be different in many ways. For instance: GIS/EM4 will lengthen the time available by one day; it will target a broader set of topics, including human-environment interactions, and it will be punctuated by "town meetings" that will allow key issues to be distilled and carried forward through a concluding work meeting to a report on research needs to be released after the conference. Conference sessions are being designed to help gain a fresh perspective on the evolution and state of theory and practice in integrating spatio-temporal analyses and environmental modeling, and to assess research needs for the future. A special conference theme is human-environment interactions, and the role that GIS and modeling have in their improved understanding and prediction. Sessions will be organized to focus on the following cross-cutting elements in addition to already familiar disciplinary approaches (hydrology, air pollution, land use, etc.) and environmental media domains (air, water, biota, etc.). Program categories and topics to be included at GIS/EM4: Research prioritization, utilization, and evaluation 1. Research and development opportunities and constraints 2. Users, advocates, producers, and sponsors 3. Auditing and performance measures Natural systems and system relations 4. Biotic (living) systems 5. Physical (non-living) systems 6. Managed (agricultural, silvicultural, urban...) systems 7. Human-environment interactions Analytic frameworks, properties, and applications 8. Problem solving environments 9. Modeling techniques and tools 10. Statistical techniques and tools 11. Decision support/aide and decision making 12. Integration, coupling, and synergism System dimensions, characteristics, and behaviors 13. Complexity and chaos 14. Spatial dimensions 15. Temporal dimensions 16. Uncertainty and predictability 17. Adaptivity, feedback, and dynamics Language, metrics, monitoring, benchmarks, and interpretation 18. Representations and formalisms 19. Measurement (including data) and indicators 20. Information handling and knowledge bases 21. Visualization and explanation This fourth conference will continue a cross-disciplinary, pan-scientific, and problem solving emphasis consistent with concern for better integrated understanding of complex whole systems, their integrity and sustained functioning, and particularly (but not exclusively) their interactions with human activity. Spatial, statistical, temporal, and other methodological considerations are expected to be given balanced treatment with issues of science theory, new data sources and sensors, computing technologies, and application techniques. You are invited to participate at GIS/EM4. To reserve accommodations and register for the conference, please see our on-line form at the "Desk" page of the conference web site (http://www.colorado.edu/research/cires/banff/desk/). For questions, please send messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED]