We are delighted to announce the winner of the Wiley-TIES best paper award for 2020. The award has been given to the article:

Beck, N, Genest, C, Jalbert, J, Mailhot, M. Predicting extreme surges from sparse data using a copula‐based hierarchical Bayesian spatial model. Environmetrics. 2020; 31:e2616. 

The paper presents an innovative solution to assessing the risk of overland flooding due to extremal surges for the Atlantic coast of Canada, addressing the problem of data sparsity and incompleteness in space and time. The authors use a combination of extreme value theory, spatial statistics in a hierarchical Bayesian approach as a modeling framework. The model implemented includes tail dependence between observed extremes, which is key for risk assessment of concurrent extreme events.

The winning paper is well written with large potential for applications on the evaluation of risk to coastal extreme events, in light of climate change. The proposed methods have a potential for broader use and provide a significant contribution to research in environmetrics.

On behalf of the award committee:

Lelys Bravo – TIES president 2019-2021

Elena Naumova – TIES Communication office

Francesco Finazzi – TIES Regional representative

28 April 2021