Last year sessions ITS6.1-3 on urban geosciences have largely confirmed the urgency to develop inter-/trans-disciplinary approaches of urban geosciences to respond to the huge societal demand to radically improve urban systems and their interactions with their environment and climate. The session ITS.6.1 focussed on the need to develop holistic approaches going beyond specialised domains such as urban meteorology, hydrology, climatology, ecology and resilience to grasp the urban-geophysical systems in their multi-component and multiscale complexity. This in particular indispensable to resolve long lasting questions like multi-hazard threats and upscaling of climate solutions. The recent IPCC report 1.5°C confirms the necessity to fully take into account the multi-component complexity of the urban-geophysical systems to achieve the urban and infrastructure transition, one of the main four system transitions to be achieved

The present session calls therefore for contributions on the development transdisciplinary concepts, methodologies and tools, as well as their applications to urban-geophysical systems in view of this transition. Jean Jouzel (former IPCC vice-president) will open this session.