Tropical ecosystems are biomes of global significance due to their large biodiversity, carbon storage capacity, and their role in the hydrological cycle. Historic and recent human activities have, however, resulted in intensive transformation of the tropical ecosystems in the Amazon, Central America, Central Africa and in South East Asia impacting the cycling of nutrient, carbon, water, and energy. Understanding their current functioning at process up to biome level in its pristine and transformed state is elemental for predicting their response upon changing climate and land use, and the impact this will have on local up to global scale.
This session aims at bringing together scientists who investigate the functioning of the tropical ecosystems across spatial and temporal scales by means of remote and in-situ observational, modelling, and theoretical studies. Particularly welcome are presentations of novel, interdisciplinary approaches and techniques.

Land use and land cover change (LULCC), including land management, has the capacity to alter the climate by disrupting land-atmosphere fluxes of carbon, water and energy. Thus, there is a particular interest in understanding the role of LULCC as it relates to climate mitigation and adaptation strategies. Much attention has been devoted to the biogeochemical impacts of LULCC, yet there is an increasing awareness that the biogeophysical mechanisms (e.g. changes in surface properties such as albedo, roughness and evapotranspiration) should also be considered in climate change assessments of LULCC impacts on weather and climate. However, characterizing biogeophysical land-climate interactions remains challenging due to their complexity. If a cooling or a warming signal emerges depends on which of the biogeophysical processes dominates and on the size and pattern of the LULCC perturbation. Recent advances exploiting Earth system modelling and Earth observation tools are opening new possibilities to better describe LULCC and its effects at multiple temporal and spatial scales. This session invites studies that improve our general understanding of climate perturbations connected to LULCC from both biogeophysical and biogeochemical standpoints, and particularly those focusing on their intersection. This includes studies focusing on LULCC that can inform land-based climate mitigation and adaptation policies. Both observation-based and model-based analyses at local to global scales are welcome.

Phosphorus (P) is essential to life, and as a key limiting nutrient, regulates productivity in terrestrial and aquatic systems. Strong geochemical interactions between P and other elements control the mobility and bioavailability of P in the environment, necessitating a coupled understanding of element cycles influencing P. At the same time P provides perhaps the most topical example of a critical resource element whose use is currently inefficiently managed. Leakage of mined P into the environment through a variety of processes (e.g. excess chemical fertiliser usage, or effluent discharges) is responsible for eutrophication and the acceleration of natural P cycling in terrestrial and aquatic systems. This puts P at the forefront of environmental and societal concerns and demands that our biogeochemical knowledge of P cycling ought to be developed through interdisciplinary research. This session aims to explore biogeochemical P cycling in the context of benefitting ‘systems understanding’ spanning terrestrial and aquatic compartments.

Topics included will explore:
Links between P and wider element cycles, for example with other macro- and micro- nutrients and controls of P availability through geochemical parameters such as Fe;
P cycling studies that bring into focus the interplay of biotic and abiotic controls within, and between, environmental compartments;
Drivers of change (climate, management, societal) acting on the coupling of P with other element cycles.
Processes, modelling and management against a background of the key issues for: P release from soil to plants; P release from soil to water; long term P supplies and the global P cycle.
Sustainable use of P, recovering of P from natural and waste water, managing P fluxes in agricultural areas.

Extreme climate and weather events, associated disasters, geohazards and emergent risks interact with other stressors, especially growing anthropogenic pressures, and are so becoming increasingly critical in the context of global environmental change. They are a potential major threat to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and one of the most pressing challenges for future human well-being and safety.
This session explores the linkages between extreme climate and weather events, geohazards, associated disasters, societal dynamics and resilience.
Emphasis is laid on 1) Which impacts are caused by extreme climate events (including risks emerging from compound events) and cascades of impacts on various aspects of ecosystems and societies? 2) Which feedbacks across ecosystems, infrastructures and societies exist? 3) What are key obstacles towards societal resilience and reaching the SDGs, while facing climate extremes? 4) What can we learn from past experiences? 5) What local to global governance arrangements best support equitable and sustainable risk reduction?
Nowadays, to answer this last question, the careful application of social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) begins to make a contribution, notably in the field of geosciences. SMCS have been integrated into crisis and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) for improved information gathering and collaboration across communities, and for collaboratively coping with critical situations. Numerous governments and EU-funded projects have been exploring the implementation and use of SMCS by developing and adopting new technologies, procedures, and applications. The effectiveness of SMCS on European disaster resilience, however, remains unclear, due to the diversity among disaster risk perception and vulnerability. In general, this second part addresses ways to govern and understand the effectiveness of SMCS for Disaster Risk Management and the related Disaster Resilience is focused.
In this session we welcome empirical with practical applications, theoretical and modelling studies from local to global scale from the fields of natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and related disciplines since the creation of novel effective approaches necessitates a coordinated and coherent effort between them.

A grand challenge facing society in the coming decades is to feed the growing human population in a sustainable and healthy manner. This challenge is central to many of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDGs), including the zero hunger goal but also those for human health, water, terrestrial biodiversity and sustainable production and consumption.
This problem is made more complex by an increasingly globalised food system and its interactions with a changing climate. Agri-food system actors - including policy makers, corporations, farmers, and consumers - must meet this challenge while considering potentially conflicting priorities, such as environmental sustainability (e.g., minimising disturbance to ecosystems via greenhouse gas emissions and the use of water, land, fertilisers and other inputs), economic viability (e.g., revenues for food producers and guaranteed access for consumers), nutritional balance and quality (e.g., addressing overconsumption and undernourishment), and resilience to climate change.
This growing complexity of agri-food systems, which can involve global supply chains and difficult environmental and societal tradeoffs, needs to be better understood.
The type of product (e.g. plant or meat based, fresh or processed), as well as the location and method of production, can play an important role in improving the nutritional quality and environmental sustainability of global food production, to enable healthy and sustainable diets. Quantifying and assessing these multiple outcomes while accounting for the linkages, interconnections, and scales of local and global supply chains will be essential for informing decisions aimed at developing sustainable and resilient agri-food systems.
This session welcomes submissions that quantify and assess a range of outcomes from agri-food systems across multiple spatial and temporal scales, and the trade-offs or synergies between them. The session will include studies providing improved methods for quantifying multiple environmental, economic or social dimensions, studies that incorporate the role of food trade into solution-development, and studies that seek to achieve multiple sustainability goals together.

The Earth’s subsurface hosts enormous methane volumes either trapped in the shallow sediments, gas hydrates and permafrost, or naturally escaping the sediment through methane seepage to enter the hydrosphere/atmosphere. Such environments are highly sensitive to climate change. Despite an increasing awareness about the positive feedback between global warming and methane seepage, the response of these complex and dynamic systems to climate change is still unclear due to complex geo/hydro/atmosphere interactions.
Fossil cold seeps, long-term observatory studies and modern examples form the foundations to understand the mutual dependences between climate and seepage, and to develop robust models to forecast future scenarios at the Earth-system scale. For this session, we welcome geologists, geophysicists, geochemists, biologists, model developers, and any others who have contributed to new case studies in modern and fossil hydrocarbon seeps in the marine and terrestrial environment, gas hydrate and permafrost settings, to describe both new methods/technologies and the scientific outcomes.

Using a wide range of sensors and platforms, remote sensing allows examining and gathering information about an object or a place from a distance. A key development in remote sensing has been the increased availability of data with very high-temporal, spatial and spectral resolution. In the last decades, several types of remote sensing data, including optical, radar, LiDAR from terrestrial, UAV, aerial and satellite platform, have been used to detect, classify, evaluate and measure the Earth surface, including different vegetation covers and forest structure. For the forest sector, such information allow efficient monitoring of changes over time and space, in support of sustainable forest management, forest and carbon inventory or for monitoring forest health and their disturbances. Remote Sensing data can provide both qualitatively and quantitatively information about forest ecosystems. In a qualitative analysis forest cover types and species composition can be classified, whereas the quantitative analysis can measure and estimate different forest structure parameters related to single trees (e.g. DBH, height, basal area, timber volume, etc.) and to the whole stand (e.g. number of trees per unite area, distribution, etc.). However, to meet the various information requirements, different data sources should be adopted according to the application, the level of detail required and the extension of the area under study. The integration of in-situ measurements with satellite/airborne/UAV imagery, Structure from Motion, LiDAR and geo-information systems offer new possibilities, especially for interpretation, mapping and measuring of forest parameters and will be a challenge for future research and application. This session explores the potentials and limitations of various remote sensing applications in forestry, with the focus on the identification and integration of different methodologies and techniques from different sensors and in-situ data for providing qualitative and quantities forest information.

Fire is an essential Earth system process that is rapidly changing in response to climate and human land use changes. Climate, vegetation and human activity regulate fire occurrence and spread, but fires also feedback to them in multiple ways. This session welcomes contributions on all aspects of linkages between fire, vegetation, climate, and humans to share recent advances and foster interdisciplinary discussions. We encourage all abstracts that explore the role of fire in the Earth system at any temporal and spatial scale using modeling, field and laboratory observations, and/or remote sensing, with an emphasis on studies that advance our understanding on interactions between fire and (1) weather, climate, and atmospheric chemistry, (2) biogeochemical cycles, land water and energy budgets, and vegetation composition and structure, and (3) human land management (e.g. impact of fire on air and water quality, deforestation, human health, and economy). We also welcome contributions focusing on fire characterization, including (4) fire behavior and emissions (e.g. fire duration, intensity, emission factors, emission height, smoke transport), (5) spatial and temporal changes of fires in the past, present, and future, (6) fire products and models, and their validation and error/bias assessment, and (7) analytical tools designed to enhance situational awareness among fire practitioners and early warning systems.

Terrestrial ecosystems are being exposed to warming and to more frequent and intense drought and rainfall events as a result of climate change. Such changes can have strong implications for biogeochemical cycling and the functioning of soils. Understanding the mechanisms that control the responses to environmental stress is critical for improving predictions on the resistance and resilience of terrestrial ecosystems on a changing world.

The aim of this session is to bridge the knowledge of different disciplines to elucidate the processes and feedbacks underpinning the biogeochemical response to climate change, with emphasis on warming, drought, and drying-rewetting events. This session will give a broad overview of empirical and modelling studies across different scales, considering how climate change affects terrestrial biogeochemistry and the interactions between soil microorganisms, plants and fauna. We will focus on the resilience and the associated recovery dynamics of soil biota to environmental disturbances, as well as on their resistance or adaptation mechanisms to climate change. We will bring together researchers from different environments and create a discussion platform to review the current state-of-the-art, identify knowledge gaps, share ideas, and tackle new challenges in the field.

Ecosystem responses to climate change depend on both long-term and dynamic feedbacks occurring between soils, plants and microbial communities. Soil resources and microbial nutrient mineralization mediate vegetation growth. In turn, plants control soil properties through the production of organic residues which are decomposed in the soil, the supply of photosynthates to the rhizosphere, as well as the association with belowground communities. The interactive effects of these responses in the context of changing environmental conditions have a key influence on soil biogeochemistry and the belowground storage of carbon. In this session we invite contributions from manipulative field experiments, observations in natural-climate gradients, and modelling studies that explore the impact of climate change on plant-growth dynamics, microbial diversity and metabolism, as well as soil biogeochemical cycling. Submissions that adopt novel approaches (e.g. molecular, isotopic) or synthesize large-scale outputs focusing on plant-soil-microbe feedbacks to warmer temperatures or water limitation are also highly welcome.

Vegetation, soils and water resources have interacted and co-evolved over Millions of years, shaping our current ecohydrological systems. Vegetation still responds rapidly to changing environmental conditions, including rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, climate change, soil degradation and hydrologic modifications. Prediction of these co-evolutionary and adaptive processes is a major scientific challenge, as it requires understanding of the general underlying principles and constraints governing plant-environment interactions.

This session aims to bring together collected knowledge about organising principles guiding co-evolutionary processes in biology, hydrology and physics, including theoretical, modelling, observational and experimental studies. We solicit contributions to all aspects of our quantitative understanding of principles such as natural selection, relevant thermodynamic principles (e.g. MaxEnt, maximum power, maximum entropy production) or biological optimality and the associated cost-benefit trade-offs.

Wide-spread permafrost thaw is expected to amplify the release of previously frozen material from terrestrial into aquatic systems: rivers, lakes, groundwater and oceans. Current projections include changes in precipitation patterns, active layer drainage and leaching, increased thermokarst lake formation, as well as increased coastal and river bank erosion that are further enhanced by rising water temperatures, river discharge and wave action. In addition, subsea permafrost that formed under terrestrial conditions but was later inundated might be rapidly thawing on Arctic Ocean shelves. These processes are expected to substantially alter the biogeochemical cycling of carbon but also of other elements in the permafrost area.

This session invites contributions on the mobilization of terrestrial matter to aquatic systems in the permafrost domain, as well as its transport, degradation and potential interaction with autochthonous, aquatic matter. We encourage submissions focusing on organic and inorganic carbon as well as on other elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, silica, iron, mercury and others, from all parts of the global permafrost area including mountain, inland, coastal and subsea permafrost, on all spatial scales, in the contemporary system but also in the past and future, based on field, laboratory and modelling work.

Anthropogenic disturbance of the global nitrogen (N) cycle has more than doubled the amount of reactive N circulating in the terrestrial biosphere alone. Exchange of reactive/non-reactive nitrogen gases between land and atmosphere are strongly affecting Earth’s atmospheric composition, air quality, global warming, climate change and human health. This session seeks to improve our understanding of a) how intensification of reactive N use, land management and climate change affects the pools and fluxes of nitrogen in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, b) and how reactive N enrichment of land and water will affect the future carbon sink of natural ecosystems as well as atmospheric exchanges of reactive (NO, N2O, NH3, HONO, NO2 and non-reactive N (N2) gases with implications for global warming, climate change and air quality. We welcome contributions covering a wide range of experimental and modelling studies, which covers microbes-mediated and physico-chemical transformations and transport of nitrogen across the land-water-air continuum in natural ecosystems from local to regional and global scales. Furthermore, the interactions of nitrogen with other elemental cycles (e.g. phosphorus, carbon) and the impacts of these interactive feedbacks for soil health, biodiversity and water and air quality will be explored in this session. Latest developments in methodological innovations and observational and experimental approaches for unraveling the complexities of nitrogen transformations and transport will also be of interest.

The critical zone comprises the Earth's permeable near-surface layer from the top of the canopy to the bottom of the groundwater. It is the zone where hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere and geosphere interact with the biosphere. This fragile skin of our planet, which supports the life and survival of humans maintaining food production and drinking water quality, is endangered by threats such as climate change and land use change.
New approaches and innovative modeling strategies are needed to understand these complex interactions between hydrological, biogeochemical cycles and human resilience processes that may govern critical zone system dynamics, including sources, dynamics and chemistry of water, models to quantify external influences like human activities or erosion, weathering rate, water transfer in the frame of global change and biolological feedback mechanisms.

This session focuses on the advancing proxies that may address pressing interdisciplinary scientific questions in coupling various disciplines like hydrology, soil science and biogeochemistry that cover single-site investigations, targeted experiments, remote sensing studies, large data compilations and modelling. This will be illustrated in this session through studies regarding the critical zone as a whole or within its different compartments, including the different environmental processes (geological, physical, chemical, and biological), their couplings and reactive transport modeling, and exploring the cities resilience.

The storage, cycling and availability of Nitrogen (N), Carbon (C) and Phosphorus (P) in soils are widely researched topics; however, less investigation has been carried out regarding the coupling and interaction of the C-N-P cycles. This is especially relevant as the quantity and quality of these three elements and their proportions and interactions control fundamental soil functions such as soil fertility and microbial activity, which have profound impacts on key ecosystem services such as primary productivity, carbon capture or biodiversity.
Beside this, there is an urgent need to implement sustainable methodologies, which help to preserve soil quality and mitigate soil degradation. Under these assumptions, traditional and novel soil organic matter amendments will help us to maintain both agricultural yields as well as soil preservation. Increase of organic matter level in soil is not only a question of soil fertility but also a necessity of soil health maintenance and fighting against desertification.
In this session, we call for submissions on a wide range of topics covering C, N, and P cycles in soils, with a special focus on studies assessing their interactions, as well as the current research and latest advances focused on maintaining soil organic matter quantity and quality and therefore preserving soil functionality.
Our aim is to cover also a wide range of spatial scales, from microbial stoichiometry to ecosystem functioning, as well as a range of methodologies, from the microscale process understanding at laboratory scale up to field-based and modelling approaches. Studies in all types of soil and ecosystems, from natural forest to agricultural or urban soils, are welcome.

The present context of accelerated changes in both climate and land use imposes an unprecedent pressure on a number of vulnerable ecosystems including wetlands, forests and rangelands, in which vegetation closely interacts and coevolves with soils and landforms. Complex interactions between climate, soils and biotic factors are involved in the development of landform-soil-vegetation feedbacks and play an important role in making ecosystems resilient to disturbances. In addition, large shifts in the distribution of vegetation and soils are associated with losses of ecosystem services (including carbon capture), frequently involving thresholds of ecosystem stability and nonlinear responses to both human and climatic pressures. This session will focus on ecogeomorphological and ecohydrological aspects of landscapes (including their connectivity), conservation of soil resources, and the restoration of ecosystem services and functions. We welcome theoretical, modelling, and empirical studies addressing the distribution of vegetation and coevolving soils and landforms, and particularly, contributions with a wide appreciation of the soil erosion-vegetation relationships that rule the formation of landscape-level spatial organization. We also welcome studies describing the implications of these spatial patterns of soils and vegetation for the resilience and stability of ecosystems under the pressure of climate change and/or human disturbances.

Viticulture is one of the most important agricultural sectors of Europe with an average annual production of 168 million hectoliters (54% of global consumption). The concept of “Terroir” links the quality and typicity of wine to the territory, and, in particular, to specific environmental characteristics that affect the plant response (e.g. climate, geology, pedology). The environmental factors that drive the terroir effect vary in space and time, as well as soil and crop management.
Understanding the spatial variability of some environmental factors (e.g. soil) is very important to manage and preserve terroirs and face the current and future issue of climate change. In this sense, it is important to stress that in the last decade, the study of terroir has shifted from a largely descriptive regional science to a more applied, technical research field, including: sensors for mapping and monitoring environmental variables, remote sensing and drones for crop monitoring, forecast models, use of microelements and isotopes for wine traceability, metagenome approach to study the biogeochemical cycles of nutrients.
Moreover, public awareness for ecosystem functioning has led to more quantitative approaches in evidencing the relations between management and the ecosystem services of vineyard agroecosystems. Agroecology approaches in vineyard, like the use of cover crops, straw mulching, and organic amendments, are developing to improve biodiversity, organic matter, soil water and nutrient retention, preservation from soil erosion.
On those bases, the session will address the several aspects of viticultural terroirs:
1) quantifying and spatial modelling of terroir components that influence plant growth, fruit composition and quality, mostly examining climate-soil-water relationships; 2) terroir concept resilience to climate change; 3) wine traceability and zoning based on microelements and isotopes; 4) interaction between vineyard management practices and effects on soil and water quality as well as biodiversity and related ecosystem services.

This session will focus on the emerging discipline of Conservation Paleobiology that uses the data from the fossil record and sedimentary archives to inform biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management. Even though humans have altered ecosystems for millennia, direct ecological observations rarely encompass more than the last few decades. At the same time, the accelerating pace of global climate change requires better understanding of the long-term resilience and adaptive capacities of ecosystems facing multiple stressors. The youngest fossil record can offer high-resolution insights into ecosystem change on timescales well beyond the limits of ecological monitoring, enabling the reconstruction of ecological baselines and natural range of variability. Additionally, the pre-Quaternary geologic record provides a series of natural experiments allowing assessment of biotic responses to major environmental perturbations, strengthening the theoretical foundations of conservation science.

We invite presentations offering both the near-time and deep-time perspective on ecological and evolutionary processes operating during times of rapid environmental changes, ranging from the Anthropocene biodiversity crisis to Phanerozoic mass extinction events. We also welcome contributions highlighting potential biases affecting the fossil record by linking stratigraphic, taphonomic and ecological patterns. We hope to stimulate discussion on novel opportunities and limitations of using different types of geohistorical data to address some of the most urgent questions in Conservation Biology.

Minerals are formed in great diversity under Earth surface conditions, as skeletons, microbialites, speleothems, or authigenic cements, and they preserve a wealth of geochemical, biological, mineralogical, and isotopic information, providing valuable archives of past environmental conditions. Interpreting these archives requires fundamental understanding of mineral formation processes, but also insights from the geological record.

In this session we welcome oral and poster presentations from a wide range of research of topics, including process-oriented studies in modern systems, the ancient rock record, experiments, computer simulations, and high-resolution microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. We intend to reach a wide community of researchers sharing the common goal of improving our understanding of the fundamental processes underlying mineral formation, which is essential to read our Earth’s geological archive.

Documenting the diversity of human responses and adaptations to climate, landscapes, ecosystems, natural disasters and the changing natural resources availability in different regions of our planet, cross-disciplinary studies in Geoarchaeology provide valuable opportunities to learn from the past. Furthermore, human activity became a major player of global climatic and environmental change in the course of the late Quaternary, during the Anthropocene. Consequently, we must better understand the archaeological records and landscapes in context of human culture and the hydroclimate-environment nexus at different spatial and temporal scales. This session seeks related interdisciplinary papers and specific geoarchaeological case-studies that deploy various approaches and tools to address the reconstruction of former human-environmental interactions from the Palaeolithic period through the modern. Topics related to records of the Anthropocene from Earth and archaeological science perspectives are welcome. Furthermore, contributions may include (but are not limited to) insights about how people have coped with environmental disasters or abrupt changes in the past; defining sustainability thresholds for farming or resource exploitation; distinguishing the baseline natural and human contributions to environmental changes. Ultimately, we would like to understand how strategies of human resilience and innovation can inform our modern strategies for addressing the challenges of the emerging Anthropocene, a time frame dominated by human modulation of surface geomorphological processes and hydroclimate.

One of the most challenging sustainable goals of the UN 2030 Agenda and other international agreements is that urban systems have to increase well-being and health. Indeed, these networked systems already host more than half of the world's population and are going to host most of its growth, while they have been mostly designed and managed with limited visions, in particular with respect to their geophysical environment.
This goal got an unforeseen acuity with the Covid-19 pandemic, starting with the confinement strategies that radically brought into question the functioning of these systems, e.g., drastically reducing mobility and breaking its ever increasing trend. Covid-19 was not without precursor (e.g., SARS, MERS) and will not be without successors.

Long term visions based on transdisciplinary scientific advances are therefore indispensable, particularly from the geoscience community. As a consequence, this session calls for contributions from data-driven and theory-driven approaches of urban health under global change. This includes:
- qualitative improvements of epidemic modelling, as trans-disciplinary and nonlinear as possible
- possible interplays between meteorological and/or climate drivers and epidemic/health issues
- novel monitoring capabilities (including contacts tracking), data access, assimilation and multidimensional analysis techniques
- managing field works, geophysical monitoring and planetary missions
- how to have the highest science output during corona pandemic
- a fundamental revision of our urban systems, their greening as well as their mobility offer
- a particular focus on urban biodiversity, in particular to better manage virus vectors
- urban resilience must include resilience to epidemics, and therefore requires revisions of urban governance.

Plastic contamination is a global concern. With increasing usage and disposal of plastics, waste management is often inefficient in processing the volumes of plastic discarded. A large proportion of plastic waste accumulates in the natural environment where clean-up is difficult, if not impossible. This results in the plastic contamination persisting in the environment for many years, having the potential to cause long-term ecological harm, ultimately affecting humans.

To mitigate plastic pollution and find solutions to reduce harmful effects, a better understanding of the sources and pathways of plastics in the environment is needed. This should inform social and industrial practices, as well as advise on regulatory changes to address plastic management. This will also promote developing a roadmap towards the development and safe usage of alternative materials, to reduce environmental and health implications. The approach aims at bringing together academics from a variety of research fields and citizen science initiatives along with stakeholders from civil society and industry, as well as regulators and policymakers. The task requires collaboration across disciplines, from environmental sciences, including biology and chemistry, geosciences, atmospheric sciences and oceanography, to materials science, social sciences and economics.

This session will address the linkages and cross-disciplinary collaborations required for effective progress in this field. We specifically invite presentations featuring successes and challenges in collaboration between academia, industry and regulators. Presentations on tracking plastics and on elucidating connecting mechanisms from human activities through to environmental abundance and impact are encouraged. Studies on biota-plastic interactions, plastic fluxes linked to human activities and environmental changes (from synoptic events to climate change) and studies linking plastic characteristics to toxicological impacts (chemistry, materials science and ecotoxicology) are welcomed.

This is a linked session co-organised and co-designed with a session at the annual meeting of SETAC Europe (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry), by connected convenor teams, to ensure full integration and input across disciplines. Outputs from the linked sessions will be disseminated widely across SETAC and EGU members through online resources, with a view to effective knowledge sharing and building collaborations.

Nature-based Solutions (NBS) are reframing discussion and policy responses worldwide to environmental challenges. Thus, NBS is of growing implementation, supported namely by the EU political agenda (e.g., green deal), as a way to attain the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and to reinforce the New Urban Agenda. The NBS concept recognise the importance of nature and outline requirements for a systemic and holistic approach to environmental change, based on an understanding of the structure and functioning of ecosystems, and the social and institutional context within which they are situated. Furthermore, there is a growing recognition that human activities exert pressure on natural resources affecting the ecosystem dynamics and therefore the nexus (synergies and trade-offs) between their different functions and services. However, quantification of existing NBS’ effectiveness, their operationalisation and replication in different environmental settings has not been presented in such a way that allows them to be both widely accepted and incorporated in policy development and in practical implementation to achieve the UN SDGs.
This session aims to discuss and advance knowledge of innovative NBS approaches to face environmental challenges, such as water supply and management, agricultural production and healthy ecosystems, and simultaneously provide better understanding of associated social-ecological interactions, contributing to enhance the scientific basis for sustainable development and resilience.
This session seeks to:
- Better understanding of advantages and disadvantages of NBS to address global environmental and societal challenges;
- Studies on adaptation and mitigation options for the effect of climate change on water provisioning and livelihoods;
- New methods and tools to investigate the role of NBS in the context of environmental change; in particular, the effectiveness of NBS for hydro-meteorological risk reduction at landscape/watershed scale;
- New insights, methodologies, tools and best practices enabling successful implementation and upscaling of NBS in multiple contexts;
- Identifying opportunities for and barriers to NBS within current regulatory frameworks and management practices;
- Presenting overviews and case studies of NBS projects that also involve the private sector and market-based mechanisms;
- NBS towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The study of deep-time (pre-Quatrenary) climate evolution is important not only for understanding Earth’s habitable history but also for providing insights to present and future changes of the Earth system. To investigate deep-time climate, several international modelling intercomparsion projects, for example DeepMIP, MioMIP, PlioMIP, have been initiated. All these MIPs pay attention to the Cenozoic climate. However, relatively fewer modelling studies simulate climate in deeper time before the Cenozoic. This session invites works on deep-time climate simulations and reconstructions over the tectonic time scales, including, but not limited to, idealized and comprehensive model simulations, geological, geochemical, and paleontological reconstructions. We wish this session could integrate our knowledge of deep-time climate and environment evolution in the spirit of an integrated Earth system.

At the 2015 Paris COP21 climate conference, 195 countries committed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and make efforts to significantly limit man-made global warming to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. France and Germany joined forces in this fight against global warming by creating the “Make Our Planet Great Again” research initiative covering research in Earth system science that aims to better understand climate change and its impacts on natural and socio-economic systems. In this interdisciplinary session, we welcome data- and model-based research undertaken within, but also outside this international initiative. We welcome contributions that provide new insights into the mechanisms of past, present and future climate changes and the associated impacts on the oceans, the cryosphere, coastal regions, and terrestrial systems. Innovative research contributions that can lead towards the ultimate goals of the Paris Agreement ranging from basic research to solution-oriented research are also encouraged.

In 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate recognised the deteriorating resilience of the Earth system, with planetary-scale human impacts constituting a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene. Earth system resilience critically depends on the nonlinear interplay of positive and negative feedbacks of biophysical and increasingly also socio-economic processes. These include dynamics in the carbon cycle, large-scale ecosystems, atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere that can absorb geophysical shocks (e.g. volcanic eruptions), as well as the dynamics and perturbations associated with human activities.

Maintaining Earth in the Holocene-like interglacial state within which the world’s societies evolved over the past ~10,000 years will require industrialised societies to embark on rapid global-scale socio-economic transformations. In addition to incrementally increasing environmental hazards, there is a risk of crossing tipping points in the Earth system triggering partly irreversible and potentially cascading changes.

In this session we invite contributions on all topics relating to Earth resilience, such as assessing the biophysical and social determinants of the Earth’s long-term stability, negative feedback processes, modelling and data analysis and integration of nonlinearity, tipping points and abrupt shifts in the Earth system, and the potential for rapid social transformations to global sustainability.

Remaining carbon budgets specify the maximum amount of CO2 that may be emitted to stabilize warming at a particular level (such as the 1.5 °C target), and are thus of high interest to the public and policymakers. Yet, there are many sources of uncertainty which make it challenging to estimate the remaining carbon budget in real world conditions, especially for ambitious mitigation targets.

This session aims to further our understanding of the climate response under different emission scenarios, with particular interest in emission pathways towards net-zero targets, and to advance our knowledge of associated carbon budgets consistent with meeting various levels of warming. We invite contributions that use a variety of tools, including fully coupled Earth System Models, Integrated Assessment Models, or simple climate model emulators.

We welcome studies exploring different aspects of climate change in response to future emission scenarios, in addition to studies exploring carbon budgets and the TCRE framework, including: the governing mechanisms behind linearity of TCRE and its limitations, effects of different forcings and feedbacks (e.g. permafrost carbon feedback) and non-CO2 forcings (e.g. aerosols, and other non-CO2 greenhouse gases), estimates of the remaining carbon budget to reach a given temperature target (for example, the 1.5 °C warming level from the Paris Agreement), the role of pathway dependence and emission rate, the climate-carbon responses to different emission scenarios (e.g. SSP scenarios, idealized scenarios, or scenarios designed to reach net-zero emission level), and the behaviour of TCRE in response to artificial carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere (i.e. CDR or negative emissions). Contributions from the fields of climate policy and economics focused on applications of carbon budgets and benefits of early mitigation are also encouraged.

The session gathers geoscientific aspects such as dynamics, reactions, and environmental/health consequences of radioactive materials that are massively released accidentally (e.g., Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents, wide fires, etc.) and by other human activities (e.g., nuclear tests).

The radioactive materials are known as polluting materials that are hazardous for human society, but are also ideal markers in understanding dynamics and physical/chemical/biological reactions chains in the environment. Thus, the radioactive contamination problem is multi-disciplinary. In fact, this topic involves regional and global transport and local reactions of radioactive materials through atmosphere, soil and water system, ocean, and organic and ecosystem, and its relation with human and non-human biota. The topic also involves hazard prediction and nowcast technology.

By combining 35 years (> halftime of Cesium 137) monitoring data after the Chernobyl Accident in 1986, 10 years dense measurement data by the most advanced instrumentation after the Fukushima Accident in 2011, and other events, we can improve our knowledgebase on the environmental behavior of radioactive materials and its environmental/biological impact. This should lead to improved monitoring systems in the future including emergency response systems, acute sampling/measurement methodology, and remediation schemes for any future nuclear accidents.

The following specific topics have traditionally been discussed:
(a) Atmospheric Science (emissions, transport, deposition, pollution);
(b) Hydrology (transport in surface and ground water system, soil-water interactions);
(c) Oceanology (transport, bio-system interaction);
(d) Soil System (transport, chemical interaction, transfer to organic system);
(e) Forestry;
(f) Natural Hazards (warning systems, health risk assessments, geophysical variability);
(g) Measurement Techniques (instrumentation, multipoint data measurements);
(h) Ecosystems (migration/decay of radionuclides).

The session consists of updated observations, new theoretical developments including simulations, and improved methods or tools which could improve observation and prediction capabilities during eventual future nuclear emergencies. New evaluations of existing tools, past nuclear contamination events and other data sets also welcome.

This session is open to all contributions in biogeochemistry and ecology where stable isotope techniques are used as analytical tools, with a focus on stable isotopes of light elements (C, H, O, N, S, ...). We welcome studies from both terrestrial and aquatic (including marine) environments as well as methodological and experimental, theoretical and modeling studies that introduce new approaches or techniques (including natural abundance work, labeling studies, multi-isotope approaches, clumped and metal isotopes).

Stable isotopes and other novel tracers, such as carbonyl sulfide (COS) and clumped isotopes, help to identify and quantify biological, chemical and physical processes that drive Earth's biogeochemical cycling, atmospheric processes and biosphere-atmosphere exchange. Recent developments in analytical measurement techniques now offer the opportunity to investigate these tracers at unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution and precision.

This session includes contributions from field and laboratory experiments, latest instrument developments as well as theoretical and modelling activities that investigate and use the isotope composition of light elements (C, H, O, N) and their compounds as well as other novel tracers for biogeochemical and atmospheric research.

Topics addressed in this session include:
- Stable isotopes in carbon dioxide (CO2), water (H2O), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O)
- Novel tracers and biological analogues, such as COS
- Polyisotopocules ("clumped isotopes")
- Intramolecular stable isotope distributions ("isotopomer abundances")
- Analytical, method and modelling developments
- Flux measurements
- Quantification of isotope effects
- Non-mass dependent isotopic fractionation and related isotope anomalies

Stable isotopes are powerful tools for tracing fluxes of water and associated nutrients in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. They are increasingly used by various disciplines to better understand the functioning of the soil-plant-atmosphere system. While new methods allow measurements at high spatial and temporal resolution, studies applying tracer methods are now tackling complex interactions between soil processes, plant physiology and ecology, and variable atmospheric drivers. As such, methodological developments and changes are happening quickly and have a strong bearing on process understanding and interpretation of findings. This session aims to address the current state of the art for methods, applications, and process interpretations using stable isotopes in the critical zone and to foster interdisciplinary exchange. We welcome experimental and modeling studies that present methodological developments and applications of isotope tracers to improve the actual knowledge of the water and nutrient exchanges at the soil-plant-atmosphere interfaces. Studies that seek to cross disciplinary boundaries and reveal new eco-hydrological process understanding are especially welcome.

Land degradation affects more than 52 billion hectares of land around the world. This is caused to a large extent by anthropogenic activities such as land abandonment, mining activities, deforestation, and inadequate land use and management. Disturbance or insufficient rebuilding of the soil physicochemical and biological characteristics can modify the ecosystem functions and services. In the absence of appropriate restoration, soils and ecosystems would remain in a disturbed state or continue to decline. Therefore, restoration and rehabilitation of degraded soils is critical to create healthy and functional ecosystems that support essential functions and services.
In this session, we welcome contributions covering research conducted in this area of research describing experimental, observational, and theoretical studies. Topics of interest are (although not limited to) causes and impacts of land degradation and remedial actions and strategies for soil restoration and rehabilitation at local, regional or global scales.

Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) is an established proxy used to investigate the past biota, including community reconstruction, detection of richness, and eco-functional shifts. It has provided a much more detailed understanding of overall ecosystem changes and its relation to environmental variability from decadal to millennial time scales. The potential of sedaDNA data to comprehend past ecosystems is rapidly accelerating because of a.) increasing DNA reference databases, b.) increasing applications in case studies addressing different paleoecological scientific questions, c.) the use and development of new protocols for high-throughput sequencing technologies, d.) the establishment of stringent bioinformatic pipelines to improve data analyses and authenticate ancient molecular signals e.) the development of sedaDNA data management tools allowing comprehensive and summarizing sedaDNA data interpretation. This session invites contributions covering terrestrial and marine applications of sedaDNA in paleoecology, including methodological renewals, bioinformatic pipelines and data management.

Reliable information on past environmental and climatic conditions is crucial for understanding the evolution of life and the Earth System as a whole. Skeletal components of marine or aquatic organisms are among the most important and widely-used natural archives capturing information about the environment and fluid chemistry during precipitation in the form of geochemical signatures and/or specific mineralogies or micromorphologies. Over the past decades, a refined understanding of (bio)mineralisation, together with the development of new isotopic and elemental proxies (e.g. clumped isotopes Δ47, boron isotopes δ11B, or elemental ratios such as Li/Mg), has led to numerous breakthroughs in palaeoclimate research (e.g. on the evolution of seawater chemistry, causes and consequences of mass extinctions, or greenhouse vs. icehouse climate sensitivities). Simultaneously, geochemical, petrographic and crystallographic approaches have brought novel insights into (bio)mineral formation processes and alteration pathways of a variety of organisms. Critically, however, our knowledge of the incorporation of elements into the crystal lattice, and the quality and reliability of extracted climatic and environmental records, depends on careful proxy calibrations, and evaluation of secondary controls such as kinetic or vital effects and diagenetic influences.

This session seeks contributions on geochemical proxy development, including but not limited to new proxies, calibrations, modelling frameworks, and analytical or methodological advances. We invite experimental and observational studies dealing with biogenic but also inorganic mineral precipitation, transformation and alteration, including interface geochemistry, geomicrobiology or new perspectives on biomineralisation from culturing of calcifying organisms. We also welcome examples on how mechanistic understanding of marine or terrestrial carbonates and/or application of novel approaches results in an improved understanding of the global carbon(ate) cycle and Earth history. The aim of this session is to synthesize recent advances in geochemistry and (bio)mineralisation to further palaeo-proxy development and application that will result in a comprehensive understanding of past global changes.

Remotely-sensed signals result from the interaction of incoming and emitted electromagnetic radiation with atmospheric constituents, vegetation, soil surfaces or water bodies. Vegetation, soil and water bodies are functional interfaces between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. These signals can be measured by optical, thermal and microwave remote sensing including the fluorescence parts of the remotely-sensed signal spectrum.
This session solicits for papers presenting strategies, methodologies or approaches leading to the assimilation of remote sensing products from different EM regions, angular constellations, fluorescence as well as data measured in situ for validation purposes.
We welcome contributions on topics related to climate change, food production & security, nature preservation, biodiversity, epidemiology, atmospheric chemistry & pollution (tropospheric ozone, anthropogenic and biogenic aerosols, nitrogen oxides, VOC’s, etc). We also welcome papers focusing on the assimilation of remote sensing and in-situ measurements in bio-geophysical and atmospheric models, as well as the RS extraction techniques themselves.

This session aims to bring together scientists developing remote sensing techniques, products and models leading to strategies with a higher bio-geophysical impact on the stability and sustainability of the Earth’s ecosystems, for the benefit of humanity and its next generations.

The MacGyver session focuses on novel sensors made, or data sources unlocked, by scientists. All geoscientists are invited to present:
- new sensor systems, using technologies in novel or unintended ways,
- new data storage or transmission solutions sending data from the field with LoRa, WIFI, GSM, or any other nifty approach,
- started initiatives (e.g., Open-Sensing.org) that facilitate the creation and sharing of novel sensors, data acquisition and transmission systems.

Connected a sensor for iPhone to an Arduino or Raspberri Pi? 3D printed an automated water quality sampler? Or build a Cloud Storage system from Open Source Components? Show it!

New methods in hydrology, plant physiology, seismology, remote sensing, ecology, etc. are all welcome. Bring prototypes and demonstrations to make this the most exciting Poster Only (!) session of the General Assembly.

This session is co-sponsered by MOXXI, the working group on novel observational methods of the IAHS.

Methods of analysis used in the investigation of soil chemical, biochemical and physical properties play very important role in the progress of soil science. The accuracy of provided analyses and quality of new knowledge and discoveries depends directly from the choice of analytical methods. The wise usage of a wide range of different analytical methods and techniques serves as a foundation for the investigation of the processes in soils and for the assessment of the soil environmental status. Unfortunately, the importance of their utilisation often remains in the shadow and is principally underestimated. Today we can notice, that the spectrum of methods used in soil science varies starting from quite simple ones and ending with high-precision methods based on high-tech instruments.
The aim of this session is to present the usage of different laboratory methods and techniques in soil research and give the possibility for researchers to exchange their experiences. The special goal of this session is to promote a wider use of innovative analytical methods for determination of chemical compounds in mineral and organic soils, sediments, substrates and composts. The innovative methods covering soil organic matter and humic substances analysis are acknowledged. The new concept “lab on phone” has appeared in scientific literature during the last few years, which specifies the use of smartphones as analytical instruments in labs and also for field experiments.
The session gives a favourable opportunity to present the works describing the usage of ICP-MS, GC-MS, HPLC-MS, TGA-MS, FTIR, fluorescence etc. in the soil analysis . The session is not limited to these techniques or methods, the works describing the methods „lab on phone“ or any other innovative method or its application for soil analysis are very expected. The studies connected with methodology of soil chemical analysis and particularly soil organic matter and humic substances are awaited.

This interdisciplinary session welcomes contributions on novel conceptual and/or methodological approaches and methods for the analysis and statistical-dynamical modeling of observational as well as model time series from all geoscientific disciplines.
Methods to be discussed include, but are not limited to linear and nonlinear methods of time series analysis. time-frequency methods, statistical inference for nonlinear time series, including empirical inference of causal linkages from multivariate data, nonlinear statistical decomposition and related techniques for multivariate and spatio-temporal data, nonlinear correlation analysis and synchronisation, surrogate data techniques, filtering approaches and nonlinear methods of noise reduction, artificial intelligence and machine learning based analysis and prediction for univariate and multivariate time series.
Contributions on methodological developments and applications to problems across all geoscientific disciplines are equally encouraged. We particularly aim at fostering a transfer of new methodological data analysis and modeling concepts among different fields of the geosciences.

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Sub-Session "Mathematical Climatology and Space-time Data Analysis" (Abdel Hannachi, Amro Elfeki, Christian Franzke, Muhammad Latif, Carlos Pires)

The recent progress in mathematical methods to solve various problems in weather & climate nonlinear dynamics and data analysis calls for the need to develop a new session that focus on those methods. Novel and powerful mathematical methods have been developed and used in different subjects of climate. Because those methods are used within specific contexts they go unnoticed most of the time by climate researchers. The proposed new session will provide the opportunity to climate scientists and researchers working on developing mathematical methods for climate to come together and present their findings in a transparent way. This will also be easily accessible to other climate scientists who look for, and are interested in specific methods to solve their problems.
Contributions are encouraged from researchers working on mathematical methods and their application to weather and climate. We particularly welcome contributions on optimization, dimension reduction and data mining, space-time patterns identification, machine learning, statistical prediction modelling, nonlinear methods , Bayesian statistics, and Monte-Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) methods in stochastic modelling.

Almost 30 years of developing the concept of geodiversity in geosciences provides a robust foundation for moving to the issue of synthesizing the existing knowledge and methods of assessing geodiversity and to disseminate the achievements of this concept.
1. The spatial and temporal scales. On what cartographic scale should the source materials be useful for determining the degree of geodiversity? Can geodiversity be considered on a local, regional, national, continental and global scale? Having in place geodiversity (stationary, at a given time of observation/assessment) and dynamic geodiversity at your disposal - how deep, how far can you reach the past and the future in geodiversity assessments of any area? Can geodiversity be determined in a palaeogeographic/geological context? How can you use geodiversity to describe geosites, geoparks, landscapes, and other forms of geoconservation? How to translate geodiversity values into geoheritage measures?
2. The lack of a standard for geodiversity assessment. Is the quality or quantity (number) of assessed geodiversity features important? How to transform qualitative assessments into quantitative assessments, so that you can easily compare different areas in terms of their substantive value, not to mention independence from the spatial and temporal scale? These issues are related to the problem of uncertainty in geodiversity assessments. This problem affects applied geodiversity studies as well, limiting further qualitative/qualitative assessment of abiotic ecosystem services. So what should be the standards of this geodiversity assessment to minimize errors in assessments?
3. If we find a consensus in establishing a standard for geodiversity assessment, how to apply the developed standard at geoconservation and geoheritage? How to consider such a standard universally acceptable? What forms of activity should best promote the idea of geodiversity? How to implement geodiversity assessments by professionals for different forms of geoconservation and geoheritage? Which ecosystem services should be taken into account in determining the importance of geodiversity for human life? How to make the society aware of the importance of geodiversity in their everyday life? How to extend the geodiversity values to preserve the state of the environment for future generations? How to link the idea of geodiversity with 17 UN SDG? Finally, how should geodiversity values be compared with biodiversity values?

Homo sapiens as product of the natural evolution of the biosphere , was created as a species in the geochemical conditions of the virgin biosphere. After successful colonization of the adverse environmental conditions around the whole world, he started its transformation first by land cultivation, urbanization and now by creation a new habitat exclusively for man. All these have led to a significant geochemical transformation of the virgin biosphere. Nowadays, a growing variety of anthropogenic sources of pollution requires, not only a constant monitoring of the chemical state of soil, water, air and food products, but also the development of spatially differentiated approaches to assessing the health risk by evaluation of diseases’ provocation. To solve this problem, it is necessary to develop effective approaches towards interpretation of spatially related geochemical and medical information. In this way we propose to discuss: 1) the global trends of health transformation in geochemical environment of actual noosphere; 2) different approaches to assess the risk of diseases of geochemical nature in different countries; 3) criteria for determining pollution level depending on geochemical constrains and health effects; 4) the problem of mapping of risk zones, related to negative medical effects due to both excess and deficiency of certain chemical elements or compounds.

Food traceability is an important issue in food security and quality control.
The possibility of tracing the origin of food stuff is assuming an increasingly important role at the legislative level, as a tool that may allow to prove on product authenticity and to control adulteration.
Establish geochemical and isotopic analytical approaches to trace food play a key role to ensure food safety.

Citizen science (the involvement of the public in scientific processes) is gaining momentum across multiple disciplines, increasing multi-scale data production on Earth Sciences that is extending the frontiers of knowledge. Successful participatory science enterprises and citizen observatories can potentially be scaled-up in order to contribute to larger policy strategies and actions (e.g. the European Earth Observation monitoring systems), for example to be integrated in GEOSS and Copernicus. Making credible contributions to science can empower citizens to actively participate as citizen stewards in decision making, helping to bridge scientific disciplines and promote vibrant, liveable and sustainable environments for inhabitants across rural and urban localities.
Often, citizen science is seen in the context of Open Science, which is a broad movement embracing Open Data, Open Technology, Open Access, Open Educational Resources, Open Source, Open Methodology, and Open Peer Review. Before 2003, the term Open Access was related only to free access to peer-reviewed literature (e.g., Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002). In 2003 and during the “Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”, the definition was considered to have a wider scope that includes raw research data, metadata, source materials, and scholarly multimedia material. Increasingly, access to research data has become a core issue in the advance of science. Both open science and citizen science pose great challenges for researchers to facilitate effective participatory science, yet they are of critical importance to modern research and decision-makers. To support the goals of the various Open Science initiatives, this session looks at what is possible and what is applied in Earth Science.

We want to ask and find answers to the following questions:
Which approaches can be used in Earth Sciences?
What are the biggest challenges in bridging between scientific disciplines and how to overcome them?
What kind of participatory citizen scientist involvement and open science strategies exist?
How to ensure transparency in project results and analyses?
What kind of critical perspectives on the limitations, challenges, and ethical considerations exist?

Modelling the Earth system with state-of-the-art Earth System models is computationally expensive. Therefore, simple climate models (SCMs, also known as “reduced complexity” models and “emulators”) are useful as they are able to produce individual climate projections with reduced computational resources. This low computational burden enables the generation of large model ensembles where climate response, carbon cycle and forcing parameters can be varied, and internal variability and teleconnections emulated, allowing for probabilistic projections of a range of climate features. Simple climate models may be physical or statistical in nature, and can range in complexity from spreadsheet-based projections of global-mean temperature from prescribed radiative forcing through to Earth System Models of Intermediate Complexity and reduced resolution variants of operational ESMs. SCMs have historically proven useful in translating knowledge of physical processes, the carbon cycle and other Earth System responses into a format useful for the economical and social sciences, and policy/decision makers.

We invite presentations on all aspects of the development and application of simple climate and geophysical models, including but not limited to:
1. the development of simple climate models and results
2. the role of simple climate models in integrated assessment and scenario generation
3. best practices in tuning and calibration of simple models to observations and complex Earth System models
4. strategies for emulating internal variability, regional climate and climate extremes
5. models that focus on one particular complex aspect of the Earth system (for example atmospheric chemistry, land and ocean carbon cycles, or the cryosphere)
6. uses of simple climate models in outreach and education

Modelling past climate states, and the transient evolution of Earth’s climate remains challenging. Time periods such as the Paleocene, Eocene, Pliocene, the Last Interglacial, the Last Glacial Maximum or the mid-Holocene span across a vast range of climate conditions. At times, these lie far outside the bounds of the historical period that most models are designed and tuned to reproduce. However, our ability to predict future climate conditions and potential pathways to them is dependent on our models' abilities to reproduce just such phenomena. Thus, our climatic and environmental history is ideally suited to thoroughly test and evaluate models against data, so they may be better able to simulate the present and make future climate projections.

We invite papers on palaeoclimate-specific model development, model simulations and model-data comparison studies. Simulations may be targeted to address specific questions or follow specified protocols (as in the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project – PMIP or the Deep Time Model Intercomparison Project – DeepMIP). They may include anything between time-slice equilibrium experiments to long transient climate simulations (e.g. transient simulations covering the entire glacial cycle as per the goal of the PalMod project) with timescales of processes ranging from synoptic scales to glacial cycles and beyond. Comparisons may include past, historical as well as future simulations and focus on comparisons of mean states, gradients, circulation or modes of variability using reconstructions of temperature, precipitation, vegetation or tracer species (e.g. δ18O, δD or Pa/Th).

Evaluations of results from the latest phase of PMIP4-CMIP6 are particularly encouraged. However, we also solicit comparisons of different models (comprehensive GCMs, isotope-enabled models, EMICs and/or conceptual models) between different periods, or between models and data, including an analysis of the underlying mechanisms as well as contributions introducing novel model or experimental setups.

One of the big challenges in Earth system science consists in providing reliable climate predictions on sub-seasonal, seasonal, decadal and longer timescales. The resulting data have the potential to be translated into climate information leading to a better assessment of multi-scale global and regional climate-related risks.
The latest developments and progress in climate forecasting on subseasonal-to-decadal and longer timescales will be discussed and evaluated. This will include presentations and discussions of predictions for a time horizon of up to ten years from dynamical ensemble and statistical/empirical forecast systems, as well as the aspects required for their application: forecast quality assessment, multi-model combination, bias adjustment, downscaling, etc.
Following the new WCPR strategic plan for 2019-2029, prediction enhancements are solicited from contributions embracing climate forecasting from an Earth system science perspective. This includes the study of coupled processes, impacts of coupling and feedbacks, and analysis/verification of the coupled atmosphere-ocean, atmosphere-land, atmosphere-hydrology, atmosphere-chemistry & aerosols, atmosphere-ice, ocean-hydrology, ocean-ice, ocean-chemistry and climate-biosphere (including human component). Contributions are also sought on initialization methods that optimally use observations from different Earth system components, on assessing and mitigating the impacts of model errors on skill, and on ensemble methods.
We also encourage contributions on the use of climate predictions for climate impact assessment, demonstrations of end-user value for climate risk applications and climate-change adaptation and the development of early warning systems.

A special focus will be put on the use of operational climate predictions (C3S, NMME, S2S), results from the CMIP5-CMIP6 decadal prediction experiments, and climate-prediction research and application projects (e.g. EUCP, APPLICATE, PREFACE, MIKLIP, MEDSCOPE, SECLI-FIRM, S2S4E, CONFESS).
An increasingly important aspect for climate forecast's applications is the use of most appropriate downscaling methods, based on dynamical or statistical approaches or their combination, that are needed to generate time series and fields with an appropriate spatial or temporal resolution. This is extensively considered in the session, which therefore brings together scientists from all geoscientific disciplines working on the prediction and application problems.

Observations from aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS/UAV/UAS) and balloons are an important means to obtain a broad view of processes within the Earth environment during measurement campaigns. The range of available instruments enables a broad and flexible range of applications. It includes sensors for meteorological parameters, trace gases and cloud/aerosol particles and more complex systems like high spectral resolution lidar, hyperspectral imaging at wavelengths from the visible to thermal infra-red and synthetic aperture radar. The use of small state-of-the-art instruments, the combination of more and more complex sets of instruments with improved accuracy and data acquisition speed enables more complex campaign strategies even on small aircraft, balloons or RPASs.
Applications include atmospheric parameters, surface properties of vegetation, glaciological processes, sea ice and iceberg studies, soil and minerals and dissolved or suspended matter in inland water and the ocean. Ground based systems and satellites are key information sources to complement airborne datasets and a comprehensive view of the observed system is often obtained by combining all three. Aircraft and balloon operations depend on weather conditions either to obtain the atmospheric phenomenon of interest or the required surface-viewing conditions and so require detailed planning. They cover large areas in the horizontal and vertical with adaptable temporal sampling. Future satellite instruments can be tested using airborne platforms during their development. The validation of operational satellite systems and applications using airborne measurements has come increasingly into focus with the European Copernicus program in recent years.
This session will bring together aircraft, balloon and RPAS operators and the research community to present:
• an overview of the current status of environmental research with a focus on the use of airborne platforms
• recent observation campaigns and their outcomes
• multi-aircraft/balloon/RPAS and multi-RI campaigns
• using airborne and ground-based RI to complement satellite data, including cal/val campaigns
• identifying and closing capability gaps
• contributions of airborne measurements to modelling activities
• airborne platforms to reduce the environmental footprint of alternative observation strategies
• airborne instruments, developments and observations
• future plans involving airborne observational research

Instrumentation and measurement technologies are currently playing a key role in the monitoring, assessment and protection of water resources.
This session focuses on measurement techniques, sensing methods and data science implications for the observation of water systems, given the strong link between measurement aspects and computational aspects, especially in the water sector.
This session aims at providing an updated framework of the observational techniques, data processing approaches and sensing technologies for water management and protection, giving also attention to today’s data science aspects, e.g. data analytics, big data, cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence.
We welcome contributions about field measurement approaches, development of new sensing techniques, low cost sensor systems and measurement methods enabling crowdsourced data collection also through social sensing. Therefore, water quantity and quality measurements as well as water characterization techniques are within the scope of this session.
Remote sensing techniques for the monitoring of water resources and/or the related infrastructures are also welcome.
Contributions dealing with the integration of data from multiple sources are solicited, as well as the design of ICT architectures (including IoT concepts) and of computing systems for the user-friendly monitoring of the water resource and the related networks.
Studies about signal and data processing techniques (including AI approaches) and the integration between sensor networks and large data systems are also very encouraged.

Soil organic matter (SOM) plays a vital role not only in soil fertility and quality (by providing a number of physical, chemical, and biological benefits), but also in carbon cycling. SOM contains a vast range of diverse organic structures, and also a living component (microorganisms) with various residence times that define the central role SOM plays in the soil. The decline of SOM represents one of the most serious threats facing many arable lands of the world. One of the efficient approaches to increase SOM content and decrease land degradation is the application of organic amendments, such as crop residues and animal manures. Nowadays, organic amendments originate from many kinds of organic wastes, which are being increasingly produced mainly by farms, agro-food industries, municipalities, and energy plants. Besides serving as a source of organic matter and plant nutrients, these materials may contribute to reduce soil contamination, erosion, and desertification, as well as mitigate climate change. At the same time, a safe and useful application of organic amendments requires an in-depth scientific knowledge of their nature and impacts on the SOM pools and factions, soil-plant system, as well as on the surrounding environment.
This session will combine the current research and recent advances on the use of organic amendments in modern agriculture as well as for the restoration of degraded soils. Special attention will be given to the soil chemical, physical, biological and biochemical aspects, including tracing the dynamics of SOM pools and fractions by using 13C/14C/15N/33P/18O isotopes. Field and laboratory studies focused on the effects of management practices, climate change, environmental conditions, soil properties are highly welcome. We also encourage contributors to present and discuss analytical challenges that remain due to environmental and analytical uncertainty.

Land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector is the only sector in National green-house gas (GHG) Inventory that accounts for carbon (C) removals, therefore it has been recognized as important for reaching the long-term climate mitigation objectives. Recently, an issue of uncertainty of the LULUCF sector estimates is strongly being emphasized and scientific community is facing a growing need to facilitate national reporting regarding C emissions/removals under LULUCF sector.
National level estimates often require long-term and comprehensive datasets at national scale, like national forest inventories (NFI), but these data are not always available. To overcome this gap, multi-source data integration, remote-sensing and modelling approaches are commonly used, but all these methods carry many issues.
This session invites contributions on national and subnational carbon budget estimates (past, present and future) in different land uses (forests, crops, grasslands, urban areas) using multiple data sources and different calculation methods. NFI-based, remote sensing and modelling studies on C stocks and/or fluxes in different ecosystem pools (live biomass, dead wood, litter or soil) are encouraged.
Aim is to provide extensive overview of different methodological approaches that can be used for national scale estimates and highlight main issues regarding data integration and model calibration and validation process.

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the key water flux at the interface of soil, vegetation and atmosphere. In-situ measurements to estimate ET (and its individual components evaporation and transpiration) have been developed in different research disciplines and cover a range of scales, from the point scale of individual sap flow sensors in trees over pedon-scale lysimeters to eddy covariance footprints. Each estimate and each scaling step includes a method-specific set of uncertainties which are rarely communicated. This is problematic for connecting different methods and the effort to scale up to remote sensing products from satellites or to model resolutions.

This session will mainly focus on the variety of ET estimates from different in-situ devices such as lysimeters, sap flow sensors, eddy covariance stations, scintillometers, approaches like the Bowen ratio method and others, including reporting and comparing the respective uncertainties of the methods. Additionally, we want to address the scale dependency of the various approaches and the scale gap between in-situ ET data, remote sensing products and catchment- or landscape-scale modelled ET. We welcome contributions that (1) assess and compare established and new in-situ ET measurements, (2) address uncertainty in the respective methods, (3) analyse trends as well as spatial and temporal patterns in in-situ measured ET data, (4) include cross-scale comparisons and scaling approaches and (5) incorporate in-situ measurements into modeling approaches.

Peatlands develop in specific hydrological settings and react sensitively to changes in climatic and hydrological boundary conditions. The hydrology of peatlands is fundamental to their function and development. Soil hydrological properties can change drastically after human interventions such as drainage, causing challenges for both model parameterization and re-wetting measures. Pristine peatlands offer and regulate many ecosystem services such as biodiversity, carbon storage, and nutrient retention. Hydrology is a key control for a number of these services. Furthermore, the effects of peatlands (both pristine and disturbed) on flood retention and regional climate are much debated. As hydrological and biotic processes in peatlands are strongly coupled, estimating the eco-hydrological response of peatlands under climate change and linking it to vegetation development and greenhouse gas emissions is a demanding task for modelers.

This session focuses on:
(1) hydrological processes operating in all types of peatlands (pristine, disturbed, degraded, drained, managed, rehabilitated or re-wetted) in northern and tropical latitudes, and
(2) the first-order control of peatland hydrology on all kinds of peatland functions.

We aim to boost knowledge transfer across spatial/temporal scales and methods; from the pore to the global scale, including laboratory, field, remote sensing, and modeling studies on hydrological, hydrochemical, biogeochemical, ecohydrological or geophysical topics, as well as ecosystem service assessments.

The terrestrial vegetation carbon balance is controlled not just by photosynthesis, but by respiration, carbon allocation, turnover (comprising litterfall, background mortality and disturbances) and wider vegetation dynamics. Observed, and likely future, changes in vegetation structure and functioning are the result of interactions of these processes with atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, climate and human activities. The quantification and assessment of such changes has proven extremely challenging because of a lack of observations at large scales and over the long time periods required to evaluate trends.

Thus, our current understanding of the environmental controls on vegetation dynamics and properties, and, in turn, their impact on carbon stocks in biomass and soils, is limited. The behaviour of vegetation models regarding many of the processes mentioned above remains under-constrained at scales from landscape to global. This gives rise to high uncertainty as to whether the terrestrial vegetation will continue to act as a carbon sink under future environmental changes, or whether increases in autotrophic respiration or carbon turnover might counteract this negative feedback to climate change. For instance, accelerated background tree mortality or more frequent and more severe disturbance events (e.g. drought, fire, insect outbreaks) might turn vegetation into carbon sources. Likewise, understanding how these shifts in dynamics will influence forest composition is crucial for long-term carbon cycle projections.

Uncertainties and/or data gaps in large-scale empirical products of vegetation dynamics, carbon fluxes and stocks may be overcome by extensive collections of field data and new satellite retrievals of forest biomass and other vegetation properties. Such novel datasets may be used to evaluate, develop and parametrize global vegetation models and hence to constrain present and future simulations of vegetation dynamics. Where no observations exist, exploratory modelling can investigate realistic responses and identify necessary measurements. We welcome contributions that make use of observational approaches, vegetation models, or model-data integration techniques to advance understanding of the effects of environmental change on vegetation dynamics, tree mortality and carbon stocks and fluxes at local, regional or global scales and/or at long time scales.

Peatland restoration for conservation purposes can solve many problems related to drained peatlands and has been implemented for decades now. However, innovative management measures that sustain economically viable biomass production while reducing negative environmental impacts including greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, fire risk and supporting ecosystem services of organic soils are only currently studied. Those management measures include, but are not limited to, productive use of wet peatlands, improved water management in conventional agriculture and innovative approaches in conservation-focused rewetting projects. We invite studies addressing all types of peatland management, i.e. agriculture, forestry and “classical” restoration, as well as their integration into GHG inventories. Work on all spatial scales from laboratory to national level addressing biogeochemical and biological aspects and experimental and modelling studies are welcome. Furthermore, we invite contributions addressing policy coherence and identifying policy instruments for initiating and implementing new management practices on organic soils. Implementation and efficiency of management practices depends not only on hydrogeology and climate but also on other regional factors. Therefore, we hope to host contributions from different geographical regions where peatlands are important including boreal, temperate and tropical peatlands.

Reports of climate change-induced tree mortality and forest decline are increasing in many parts of the world, yet there is no consensus on the consistency of global patterns or trends of tree mortality, nor on potential trajectories of future forest condition. Given the important role of forests for global biogeochemical cycles and for a sustainable provision of life-supporting ecosystem services and products, these knowledge gaps highlight the need for novel approaches towards monitoring and modelling tree mortality rates at the site, regional, continental and global level.
This session focuses on efforts to improve our understanding on: I) causes and mechanisms related to forest vulnerability and dieback; II) potential changes in tree species composition, forest structure and extent of dieback under current and future climate change scenarios; III) which hydraulic traits, both functional anatomical and physiological, make some tree species or stands and tree populations more prone to environmental-induced dieback and decline; IV) the role and interaction of insect disease and other abiotic factors on mortality; V) avenues for developing coherent assessments across the diverse existing data sets and associated monitoring methods.

Natural disturbances in forests, including windthrow events, insect infestations, wildfires and droughts have intensified in severity, frequency, and extent over the last few decades, and ongoing climate change is predicted to further accelerate these trends. If disturbance regimes exceed ecosystem resilience thresholds, forests may change to a new permanent state (e.g. turnover of tree species composition) or may convert fully into non-forest ecosystems.

Forest management practices can influence both the resistance and resilience of a forest ecosystem to its disturbances, in terms of outcomes for biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and the biochemical and physical properties of landscapes. Promotion of mixed species forestry, for instance, can increase stand stability against windthrow, and might decrease forests’ vulnerability to insect attacks or drought. Retention of dead wood, on the other hand, is thought to enhance the recovery of forest structure and complexity, as well as above and below-ground diversity. Type, scale and intensity of disturbance events, along with pre- and post-disturbance management practices, may ultimately lead to changes in vegetation dynamics and plant-soil-atmosphere interactions.

In this session, we hope to stimulate scientific exchange among ecological research disciplines, broaden the view on how forest management shapes forest susceptibility to natural disturbances, and draw attention to how management can alleviate post-disturbance effects on ecosystem functioning. We aim to bring together research spanning from tree and soil processes at the microscale to landscape-level dynamics. We invite contributions investigating natural forest disturbances and pre- and post-disturbance management practices from a variety of perspectives, including:
• Vegetation dynamics;
• Micro-meteorology;
• Plant physiology;
• Soil sciences;
• Microbiology.

Contributions based on observational, experimental, and modeling studies as well as reviews and syntheses are welcome.