The world is facing overwhelming challenges with implications on the socio-economic performance and the quality of life around the planet. New solutions are needed to prevent, overcome or mitigate the turmoil processes caused by global change, resources exhaustion, and the procession of induced socio-economic impacts.
Future challenges for global sustainability address the impact of human actions on environmental changes and ask how these changes affect human well-being. The problem is closely connected to a transition of the socio-ecological system. In this session we ask for contributions that describe, characterize, or model transitions of the complex system consisting of social, economic, or ecologic components. Special attention can be devoted to the interactions of the socio-economic system and the variables that help to understand the relevant transition processes. Of particular interest are the contributions of geosciences to understand these complex transitions. What transitions occur in view of climate change / global change and how can they be modelled? How do energy, land use and water supply interact during transitions? Further questions address the relevant variables and indicators to understand transition processes, the limits of a save transition, as well as the connection to phenomena such as changing consumption patterns and the results for out ecosystems.