This general session of the Energy, Resources and the Environment (ERE) division provides an overview of its multi- and interdisciplinarity, which is needed to tackle challenges of the future. Beside others, this is to provide adequate and reliable supplies of affordable energy and other resources, obtained in environmentally sustainable ways, which will be essential to economic prosperity, environmental quality and political stability around the world. This session also features contributions of general interest within the ERE community, and which are not covered by other ERE sessions. Aim of this session is to provide an overview of topics within the ERE domain.

This session aims to combine two pertinent topics to address the long-term mitigation of climate change through the removal and reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while also implementing strategies to conserve the environment and enhance biodiversity.

The first topic deals with carbon emissions/removals estimates under Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), with an emphasis on field measurements, remote sensing and modelling.
LULUCF is the only sector in national GHG inventories that accounts for carbon (C) removals. Therefore, it has been recognised as crucial for reaching long-term climate change mitigation objectives. Uncertainties surrounding estimates from the LULUCF sector are being strongly emphasised, while the scientific community is facing a growing need to facilitate national reporting regarding C emissions/removals under the LULUCF sector.
We invite contributions on national and subnational C budget estimates in different land uses (e.g., forests, crops, grasslands, urban areas) using multiple data sources (e.g., NFI, RS, modelling).
The aim is to provide an extensive overview of different methodological approaches that can be used for national scale estimates and highlight some of the main issues regarding data integration and model calibration and validation processes.

The second topic is dedicated to the environmental and socio-economic implications of low-carbon energy transitions.
Over the last decade, the transition towards low-carbon and renewable energy systems has accelerated significantly around the world to meet internationally-agreed climate change targets through the reduction of GHG emissions from the energy sector. This has precipitated expansive land use or environmental change, with subsequent impacts on biodiversity and related ecosystem processes and services.
The aim is to pool environmental, technological, or societal research and gather new evidence and insights from around the world on the effects of low-carbon energy transitions on the environment.

Most existing studies developed energy systems models (ESMs) for low carbon transition to achieve minimum mitigation costs and constrains of greenhouse emissions. Neglecting the influences on earth system, such as material consumptions, freshwater eutrophication, ocean acidification can lead to failure of sustainable development goals. This session will call for more efforts towards a sustainable energy transition by incorporating planetary boundaries into energy systems models, explicitly linking energy generation with the Earth's ecological limits.

The water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus refers to the relationships or interdependencies of water use, energy production, food security and nature conservation. This concept is becoming more and more prominent, not only in research, but also in governmental programmes, initiatives of United Nations and even the private sector. One main objective of these programmes is assuring that measures in one particular sector do not negatively affect the functioning of the other sectors (i.e. holistic planning that increases synergies and avoids trade-offs). The key research question in this domain is: can we, as a global community, cover fundamental human needs without destroying the ecosystems we rely on?

This session invites contributions exploring this question and related issues, including nexus dynamics, trade-offs, synergies, management options, past trends, projections, uncertainties and behaviour as a complex system. Societal, economic and biophysical implications of “good” and “bad” implementation of nexus approaches (or lack of nexus consideration) are also welcome. The focus lies on large-scale assessments (global or continental scale) and on local/regional assessments including the city scale that are also relevant for other locations due to transferability of methods, representative character, relevance of knowledge acquired, or other aspects. Methodological characteristics are fully open, including but not restricted to modelling, remote sensing assessments, in-situ data analysis, and surveys.

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.

Geoscience underpins many aspects of the energy mix that fuels our planet and offers a range of solutions for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as the world progresses towards net zero. The aim of this session is to explore and develop the contribution of geology, geophysics and petrophysics to the development of sustainable energy resources in the transition to low-carbon energy. The meeting will be a key forum for sharing geoscientific aspects of energy supply as earth scientists grapple with the subsurface challenges of remaking the world’s energy system, balancing competing demands in achieving a low carbon future.

Papers should show the use of any technology or modelling that was initially developed for use in conventional oil and gas industries, and show it being applied to either sustainable energy developments or to CCS, subsurface waste disposal or water resources.
Relevant topics include but are not limited to:
1. Exploration & appraisal of the subsurface aspects of geothermal, hydro and wind resources.
2. Appraisal & exploration of developments needed to provide raw materials for solar energy, electric car batteries and other rare earth elements needed for the modern digital society.
3. The use of reservoir modelling, 3D quantification and dynamic simulation for the prediction of subsurface energy storage.
4. The use of reservoir integrity cap-rock studies, reservoir modelling, 3D quantification and dynamic simulation for the development of CCS locations.
5. Quantitative evaluation of porosity, permeability, reactive transport & fracture transport at subsurface radioactive waste disposal sites.
6. The use of petrophysics, geophysics and geology in wind-farm design.
7. The petrophysics and geomechanical aspects of geothermal reservoir characterisation and exploitation including hydraulic fracturing.

The session also includes modelling of geological subsurface utilisation in terms of chemical or thermal energy storage as well as hydrocarbon production and storage are required to ensure a safe and sustainable energy supply.

Post-mining issues, such as the coal fire, the underground water, the risk of slope-sliding and subsidence of surface induced by mining, the consequences of risk to local eco-environment and safety-health concerns for human beings, and the utilization of resources (including underground space, surface land, underground water energy, industrial touring sites, etc.) from closed mines, have become the focusing research topics which have significance for the green sustainable mining of coal over the world.
Concerning the post-mining issues, the coal fire and the underground water are the major two issues need to be studied thoroughly, especially in fragile ecological regions. Efficient control and utilization of post-mining issues and the corresponding resources from them will largely reduce their impacts on local environment and society community.
This session mainly focuses on issues of the coal fire, the underground water, and the utilization of resources from closed mines. Scopes for this session were listed as follow, but not limited to these.
1)Mechanism of occurrence and propagation of coal fire.
2)Detecting, monitoring and early warning of coal fire.
3)Efficient materials and technologies against coal fire.
4)Eco-environmental impacts induced by coal fire.
5)Health risk to human beings from coal fire.
6)Utilization of energy from coal fire and underground water.
7)Safety risk from closed mines.
8)Utilization of resources from closed mines.
9)Restoration and remediation at post-mining sites.
10)Others.

This session will gather studies from South Mediterranean perimeter and the latest geosciences studies performed on North African Mountain belts and Sedimentary Basins. The session will be particularly dedicated to present valuable work that cover areas of Structural Geology, Geochemistry, Geophysics and Subsurface Resources Exploration and Exploitation in the Mediterranean and North African region. Special regard will be inclined to studies focusing on (but not limited to) Tectonics, magmatism and/or structural control on Subsurface Resources prospectivity. Furthermore, the congregated new studies in this session will induce the interest of researchers to the fast growing demands of exploring various Earth’s subsurface resources, especially in the wealthy ground of the African continent. It will also be a constructive mean to share the local and regional scientists’ new discoveries and knowledge of the region with broader potential interested participants.

The conservation, protection, and fruition of cultural heritage are closely related to the environmental setting and its variability. Historical objects, structures, and sites worldwide interact with a broad diversity of environments, on the surface (outdoors or indoors), underground, or underwater. As the characteristics of the Earth’s systems vary in space and time, also in view of climate change, so does the behavior of the materials shaping the cultural assets.
This session addresses the interaction between cultural heritage and the environment from the interdisciplinary perspective of geosciences, which represent a valuable support for investigating the properties and durability of the component materials (e.g., stones, ceramics, mortars, pigments, glasses, and metals); their vulnerability and changes in weathering dynamics; the influence of key environmental variables associated with climate, microclimate, and composition of air, waters, and soils; the impact of global warming, sea level rise, ocean acidification, and extreme weather events; the techniques and products to improve conservation practices; and the adaptation measures for heritage protection. This session welcomes contributions with an explicit and direct connection with environmental issues and questions. The possible research approaches include but are not limited to field and laboratory analysis and testing; damage assessment, observation, and simulation; modeling of decay and risk scenarios; strategies of monitoring and remote investigation; hardware/software design for collecting and processing environmental databases.

Geoscience expertise is essential for the functioning of modern societies, to address many of the most urgent global problems, inform decision-making, and guide education at all levels, by equipping citizens to discuss, shape and implement solutions to local, regional and global social-environmental problems. In recent years, geoscientists have become more and more aware of ethical responsibilities to put their knowledge at the service of society, foster public trust in geosciences, and reflect on the environmental footprint of research practices. Geoethics aims to provide a common framework for orienting geoscientists’ concerns on delicate issues related geoscience-society interaction and to nourish a discussion on the fundamental principles and values which underpin appropriate behaviors and practices, wherever human activities interact with the Earth system.
The goal of the session is to foster the discussion on the following spectrum of topics:
- philosophical and historical aspects of geoscience, their contemporary relevance and role in informing methods for effective and ethical decision-making;
- geoscience professionalism and deontology, research integrity and issues related to harassment and discrimination, gender and disability in geosciences;
- ethical and social questions related to the management of land, air and water including environmental changes, pollution and their impacts;
- socio-environmentally sustainable supply of georesources (including energy, minerals and water), importance of effective regulation and policy-making, social acceptance, and understanding and promoting best practices;
- questioning professional practices in geosciences and their impact on the environment, and implementation of new practices to reduce it;
- resilience of society related to natural and anthropogenic hazards, risk management and mitigation strategies, including adaptation knowledge and solutions;
- ethical aspects of geoscience education and communication;
- culture and value of geodiversity, geoconservation, geoheritage, geoparks and geotourism;
- role of geosciences in achieving socio-economic development that respects cultures, traditions and local development paths, regardless of countries' wealth, and in promoting peace, responsible and sustainable development and intercultural exchange.
Session sponsored by International Association for Promoting Geoethics (www.geoethics.org).

Environmental systems often span spatial and temporal scales covering different orders of magnitude. The session is oriented toward collecting studies relevant to understand multiscale aspects of these systems and in proposing adequate multi-platform and inter-disciplinary surveillance networks monitoring tools systems. It is especially aimed to emphasize the interaction between environmental processes occurring at different scales. In particular, special attention is devoted to the studies focused on the development of new techniques and integrated instrumentation for multiscale monitoring of high natural risk areas, such as volcanic, seismic, energy exploitation, slope instability, floods, coastal instability, climate changes, and another environmental context.
We expect contributions derived from several disciplines, such as applied geophysics, geology, seismology, geodesy, geochemistry, remote and proximal sensing, volcanology, geotechnical, soil science, marine geology, oceanography, climatology, and meteorology. In this context, the contributions in analytical and numerical modeling of geological and environmental processes are also expected.
Finally, we stress that the inter-disciplinary studies that highlight the multiscale properties of natural processes analyzed and monitored by using several methodologies are welcome.

The session gathers multi-disciplinary 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.), future potential risk of leakage (e.g., Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant) 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. Therefore, man-made radioactive contamination involves regional and global transport and local reactions of radioactive materials through atmosphere, soil and water system, ocean, and organic and ecosystem, and its relations with human and non-human biota. The topic also involves hazard prediction, risk assessment, nowcast, and countermeasures, , which is now urgent important for the nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

By combining long monitoring data (> halftime of Cesium 137 after the Chernobyl Accident in 1986, 12 years 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.

The Water, Energy, Food, and Environment (WEFE) components of the Nexus are in rapid transition, driven by forces such as socioeconomic, demographic, climatic, and technological changes as well as policies intended to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other societal priorities. These dynamics weave across spatial scales, connecting global markets and trends to regional and sub-regional economies. At the same time, resources are often locally managed under varying administrative jurisdictions closely tied to inherent characteristics of each commodity such as river basins for water, grid regions for electricity and land-use boundaries for agriculture. Local decisions, in turn, are critical in deciding the success and consequences of national and global policies, as well as their impact. Thus, there is a growing need to better characterise the Nexus to guide robust and consistent multi-scale decision-making under a changing climate. One of the hardest challenges in science is turning research into practice, having a concrete impact on policies and operations, and engaging stakeholders in a way that they truly adopt the proposed solutions.

This session aims to address these challenges at different scales (local to regional) in nascent infrastructure planning and sectoral transitions, with a large focus on solutions generated by European research projects and other international experiences. Contributions can include work dealing with applications of existing nexus approaches in sustainability assessment, climate-resilient and adaptive nexus management, and design of future developments, as well as new methods and nature-based solutions that address existing gaps related to incorporating processes at different scales, bridging data gaps, improving optimisation approaches, or dealing with transboundary issues and Nexus governance. Success cases of impactful research on local, national, and/or international policies and decisions are also welcome.

Hydroclimatic conditions and availability of water resources in space and time constitute important factors for maintaining adequate food supply, the quality of the environment, and the welfare of citizens and inhabitants, in the context of a post-pandemic sustainable growth and economic development. This session is designed to explore the impacts of hydroclimatic variability, climate change, and temporal and spatial availability of water resources on different factors, such as food production, population health, environment quality, and local ecosystem welfare.
We particularly welcome submissions on the following topics:
• Complex inter-linkages between hydroclimatic conditions, food production, and population health, including: extreme weather events, surface and subsurface water resources, surface temperatures, and their impacts on food security, livelihoods, and water- and food-borne illnesses in urban and rural environments.
• Quantitative assessment of surface-water and groundwater resources, and their contribution to agricultural system and ecosystem statuses.
• Spatiotemporal modeling of the availability of water resources, flooding, droughts, and climate change, in the context of water quality and usage for food production, agricultural irrigation, and health impacts over a wide range of spatiotemporal scales.
• Smart infrastructure for water usage, reduction of water losses, irrigation, environmental and ecological health monitoring, such as development of advanced sensors, remote sensing, data collection, and associated modeling approaches.
• Modelling tools for organizing integrated solutions for water supply, precision agriculture, ecosystem health monitoring, and characterization of environmental conditions.
• Water re-allocation and treatment for agricultural, environmental, and health related purposes.
• Impact assessment of water-related natural disasters, and anthropogenic forcing (e.g. inappropriate agricultural practices, and land usage) on the natural environment (e.g. health impacts from water and air, fragmentation of habitats, etc.)

The conservation and restoration of aquatic systems is essential to cover the growing demand of drinking water, especially in urban areas. However, the physico-chemical conditions of aquatic systems can be altered by a wide range of factors such as (i) the release of pollutants as a result of human activities (organic and inorganic contaminants), (ii) the presence of natural and engineered particles (inorganic particles, biocolloids and plastics), or (iii), the impacts of anthropogenic activities developed in urban areas (geothermal energy, constructions or landfills). All of these factors are of great concern because of their potential adverse effects on ecosystem functions, wildlife and human health.
The session is divided according with two main topics: (i) the effects of the presence of particles in environmental systems, and (ii), the consequences of anthropogenic activities on the physico-chemical conditions of urban water resources.
Main contributions will be focused on:
• The occurrence and fate of chemicals compounds of anthropogenic origin and particles in aquatic and terrestrial systems.
• The impacts of human related activities and actions on the physico-chemical conditions of water resources, especially in urban environments.
• Methods to detect, characterize, quantify and test the behaviour of particles in aquatic and terrestrial systems.
• Interactions between biocolloids, particles and solids
• Toxicity of products generated from biological disruption of pollutants in the presence of biocolloids and adverse effects of nanoparticles on microorganisms
• The effects of climate change on biocolloids and nanoparticles migration
• Public health risks associated with water and air polluted with biocolloids and nanoparticles.

In 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on climate recognized 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 and interactions between the carbon cycle, the atmosphere, oceans, large-scale ecosystems, and the cryosphere, as well as the dynamics and perturbations associated with human activities.

With rising anthropogenic pressures, there is an increasing risk we might be hitting the ceiling of some of the self-regulating feedbacks of the Earth System, and cross tipping points which could trigger large-scale and partly irreversible impacts on the environment, and impact the livelihood of millions of people. Potential domino effects or tipping cascades could arise due to the interactions between these tipping elements and lead to a further decline of Earth resilience. At the same time, there is growing evidence supporting the potential of positive (social) tipping points that could propel rapid decarbonization and transformative change towards global sustainability.

In this session we invite contributions on all topics relating to tipping points in the Earth system, positive (social) tipping, as well as their interaction and domino effects. We are particularly interested in various methodological approaches, from Earth system modelling to conceptual modelling and data analysis of nonlinearities, tipping points and abrupt shifts in the Earth system.

Despite increasing public awareness about global plastic pollution and rising concerns about associated ecotoxicological risks, the annual amount of plastic waste released into natural environments continues to increase drastically. Proceeding pollution inevitably leads to spreading and accumulation of plastics through any sedimentary system, which is why plastics have been detected in almost every environment and natural habitat on Earth. To fully grasp the magnitude of the global plastic pollution problem and time scales associated with ecotoxicological consequences, we need to understand where plastic waste accumulates and how plastic items have been fragmented, depredated, and altered along their pathway. This includes a fundamental understanding of hydrodynamic transport processes including plastic-sediment interactions, as well as leaching processes of different types of plastics under various environmental conditions.

- Occurrence and spatial distribution of plastic waste in the environment
- Transport, deposition, and burial of plastics
- Fragmentation and degradation of plastics
- Leaching of chemical additives from plastics
- Toxicological studies on plastics or on chemical additives release from plastics
- Studies on the interaction between plastic and natural materials such as sediments
- Advanced analytical workflows suitable for the time-efficient and accurate analysis of small microplastics in sediments

We invite contributions based on geological, tectonic, geophysical and geodynamic studies of the Tethyan Belt, Central Asia, and the Circum Pacific margins. We particularly invite interdisciplinary studies, which integrate observations and interpretations based on a variety of methods. This session will include a suite of studies of these regions with the aim of providing a comprehensive overview of their formation and evolution, influence of the tectonic features on climate, biodiversity, human habitat, and topographic change.
The Tethyan Belt is the most prominent collisional zone on Earth, covering the vast area between far eastern Asia and Europe. The geological-tectonic evolution of the belt has led to significant along-strike heterogeneity in its various regions, including the SE-Asian subduction-collision system, the Tibetan-Himalayan region, the Iranian Plateau, Anatolia, and the Alpine orogen. The Tethyan Belt is the result of subduction of the Tethyan Oceans, including significant terrane amalgamation, and collisional tectonics along the whole belt. The belt is today strongly affected by the ongoing collision of Eurasia with the African, Arabian and Indian plates and the large-scale geometry of the Cenozoic mountain ranges is often determined by inherited features. The long formation history and the variability of tectonic characteristics and deep structure of the region make it a natural laboratory for understanding the accretion processes that have shaped the Earth through its history and have led to the formation of vast resources in the crust.
The circum-Pacific domain has been undergoing multiple re-orientations in subduction and given rise to basin-mountain systems in both the eastern and western Pacific continental margins since the late Mesozoic. We welcome contributions on (1) the formation/origin and evolution of lithosphere architecture, (2) spatial-temporal evolution of Earth’s surface topography, (3) evolution of basin-mountain systems, and (4) 4-D geodynamic models of eastern and western Pacific continental margins.

Fibre optic based techniques allow probing highly precise direct point and distributed sensing of the full ground motion wave-field including translation, rotation and strain, and environmental parameters such as temperature and even chemicals at a scale and to an extent previously unattainable with conventional geophysical methods. Considerable improvements in optical and atom interferometry enable new concepts for inertial rotation, translational displacement and acceleration sensing. Laser reflectometry using both fit-to-purpose and commercial fibre optic cables have successfully detected a variety of signals including microseism, local and teleseismic earthquakes, volcanic events, ocean dynamics, etc. Significant breakthrough in the use of fibre optic sensing techniques came from the new ability to interrogate telecommunication cables at high precision both on land and at sea, as well as in boreholes and at the surface. Applications of the resulting new type of data are manifold: they include seismic source and wave-field characterization with single point observations in harsh environments like active volcanoes, the ocean bottom, the correction of tilt effects, e.g. for high performance seismic isolation facilities, as well as seismic ambient noise interferometry and seismic building monitoring.

We welcome contributions on developments in instrumental and theoretical advances, applications and processing with fibre optic point and/or distributed multi-sensing techniques, light polarization and transmission analyses, using standard telecommunication and/or engineered fibre cables. We seek studies on theoretical, observation and advanced processing in fields, including seismology, volcanology, glaciology, geodesy, geophysics, natural hazards, oceanography, urban environment, geothermal applications, laboratory studies, large-scale field tests, planetary exploration, gravitational wave detection, fundamental physics. We encourage contributions on data analysis techniques, machine learning, data management, instrumental performance and comparison as well as new experimental, field, laboratory, modeling studies in fibre optic sensing studies.

We are happy to announce Prof. Martin Landrø, Prof. Kuo-Fong Ma and Dr. David Sollberger as invited speakers!

Wind and solar power are the predominant new sources of electrical power in recent years. Several countries or regions regularly exceed 100% of variable renewable energy in their grids. By their very nature, wind and solar power, as well as hydro, tidal, wave and other renewable forms of generation are dependent on weather and climate. Modelling and measurement for resource assessment, site selection, long-term and short term variability analysis and operational forecasting for horizons ranging from minutes to decades are of paramount importance.

The success of wind power means that wind turbines are increasingly put in sites with complex terrain or forests, with towers extending beyond the strict logarithmic profile, and in offshore regions that are difficult to model and measure. Major challenges for solar power are notably accurate measurements and the short-term prediction of the spatiotemporal evolution of the effects of cloud field and aerosols. Planning and meteorology challenges in Smart Cities are common for both.

The integration of large amounts of renewable energy into the grid is another critical research problem due to the uncertainties linked to their forecast and to patterns of their spatio-temporal variabilities.

We invite contributions on all aspects of weather dependent renewable power generation, e.g.:

• Wind conditions (both resources, siting conditions and loads) on short and long time scales for wind power development, especially in complex environments (e.g. mountains, forests, coastal or urban).
• Long term analysis of inter-annual variability of solar and wind resource
• Typical Meteorological Year and probability of exceedance for wind and solar power development,
• Wind and solar resource and atlases.
• Wake effect models and measurements, especially for large wind farms and offshore.
• Performance and uncertainties of forecasts of renewable power at different time horizons and in different external conditions.
• Forecast of extreme wind events and wind ramps.
• Local, regional and global impacts of renewable energy power plants or of large-scale integration.
• Dedicated wind measurement techniques (SODARS, LIDARS, UAVs etc.).
• Dedicated solar measurement techniques (pyranometric sensors, sun-photometer, ceilometer, fish-eye cameras, etc.) from ground-based and space-borne remote sensing.
• Tools for urban area renewable energy supply strategic planning and control.
Other related topics will be considered by the conveners.

This session addresses spatial and temporal modelling of renewable energy systems, both in a prospective as well as in a retrospective manner. Therefore, contributions which model the characteristics of future renewable energy systems are equally welcome as contributions which assess the characteristics of the past performance of renewable energies. Session contributions may reach from purely climate based assessments of simulated renewable generation time series, over assessments of land use to full energy system models used to better understand energy systems with high shares of renewables.

Studies may for instance:
Show the spatial and temporal variability of renewable energy sources, including resource droughts and complementarity between technologies and locations.
Derive scenarios for the spatial allocation of renewable energies based on climatic, technical, economic, or social criteria.
Assess past spatial deployment patterns of renewables.
Assess past impacts on land cover and land-use, including impacts on biodiversity and other environmental indicators.
Derive integrated scenarios of energy systems with high shares of renewables (Including systems from the local scale e.g. in form of local Energy Communities to the national or continental scale).

The objective of the session is to provide an insight into recent advances in the field of renewable energy system modeling. The session welcomes research dedicated to climatic and technical issues, environmental impact assessments, and policy-making, forecasting and real time applications concerning renewable energy systems.

Full papers can be submitted along with the abstract to a dedicated topical collection in the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information.

The session welcomes contributions about shallow geothermal energy applications, including traditional closed- and open-loop borehole heat exchangers as well as so-called energy geostructures (e.g. thermo-active foundations, walls, tunnels).
Different types of analysis and approaches are relevant to this session, spanning from the evaluation of ground thermal properties to the mapping of shallow geothermal potential, from energy storage and district heating to sustainability issues and consequences of the geothermal energy use, from the design of new heat exchangers and installation techniques to the energy and thermo-(hydro-) mechanical performance of energy geostructures, from the local behaviour of a heat exchanger to the city scale implementation of energy geostructures. Contributions based on experimental, analytical and numerical modelling are welcome as well as interventions about legislative aspect.

Clean-Energy Transition is a central concept to EU energy and climate policies, and in this context the need for geothermal resources utilization is accelerating. Geothermal energy can be extracted from different, often complex geological settings (e.g., fractured crystalline rock, magmatic systems, or sedimentary basins). Current advancements also target unconventional systems (e.g., enhanced geothermal systems, super-hot, pressurized and co-produced, super-critical systems) besides conventional hydrothermal systems. Optimizing investments leads also to the development of associated resources such as lithium, rare earths and hydrogen. This requires a joint effort for understanding and modelling geological systems that are specific to each resource. Sustainable use of geothermal resources requires an advanced understanding of the properties of the entire system at every stage of geothermal field development, including but not limited to geophysical properties, thermo-/petro-physical conditions, fluid composition; structural and hydrological features; and engineering considerations. The main challenges faced are, among others, exploration of blind systems, reservoir stimulation, environmental concerns, induced seismicity, multiphase fluid and scaling processes, monitoring.
The integration of analogue field studies with real-life production data, from industrial as well as research sites, and with numerical models, is a hot topic worldwide. We aim to gather field, laboratory and numerical experts who focus their research on geothermal sites, to stimulate discussion in this multidisciplinary applied research field. We encourage contributions from experts from a broad range of disciplines such as (hydro)geologists, geochemists, (geo)physicists, surface and subsurface engineers. The aim of this session is to gather inputs focusing on the interplay between different approaches. We welcome contributions from different research areas ranging from field data collection and analysis to laboratory experiments (e.g., geophysical surveys, structural characterization, geomechanical, geochemical experiments), and from data management and organization to numerical modeling.

This session aims to engage discussions on successful and not-so-successful experiences on geothermal studies (open and close systems) together with groundwater behaviours.

Despite geothermal systems are being world-wide installed during the last decades, there are many issues to be improved and optimised around its functionalities considering groundwater behaviour in middle and long term.

This session is open to good and bad (laboratory, field and modelling) experiences on:
- Design of geothermal installations
- Groundwater interaction in geothermal design
- Long term behaviour of geothermal installations
- Negative impact of geothermal installations on the underground and on groundwater resources

Keynote speakers: Professors Peter Bayer and Thomas Vienken will encourage proactive discussions.

We invite you to submit your experiences, especially mistakes to avoid them in the future.

Discussions arise during the sessions would increase the knowledge and know-how on this topic.

The ocean represents a vast and largely untapped resource, which is being explored as a source of low carbon renewable energy. There is much research within the ocean science community into resource characterization and the interaction of energy conversion technologies with the ocean environment. We seek contributions spanning a broad range of topics relating to ocean renewable energy, including offshore wind, wave, ocean current and tidal resources over timescales ranging from semi-diurnal to decadal, and feedbacks between the available resource and energy extraction at local and regional scales. The session also seeks discussions on the application of ocean energy for ocean instrumentation/observation, powering off-grid buoys, unpiloted surface and underwater vehicles, and desalination. This session will gather and relate research methods and results from investigations into field techniques, and numerical/statistical modelling used to assess interactions of ocean renewable energy with ocean processes. The session will also include studies of physical impacts (e.g. impacts on sedimentary systems), and societal interactions (e.g. marine spatial planning). We also invite innovative research on ocean energy arrays/sites for co-located applications (e.g. offshore wind combined with aquaculture) that would benefit from combined infrastructure and reduced levelized costs.

Providing sufficient energy while minimizing climate impacts has become an essential challenge for our society, and the difficult geopolitical situation in Europe, combined with energy scarcity adds momentum to finding solutions quickly. At the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a working group has formed to explore the situation in Austria and Europe regarding pathways of a sustainable energy transition. Findings so far have demonstrated that the issue can’t be solved entirely on technological progress, but it needs a general re-thinking on how much energy is needed for decent living towards provision of services rather than energy. Increased efficiency, reduced energy consumption and smart grids as well as consuming devices are identified to be key pillars of a successful energy transition.
The context of the climate crisis as laid open in the recent IPCC reports (www.ipcc.ch) and the political response in form of the European Green Deal (https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en) demand treatment at highest scientific standards to provide well-founded responses to the society.
This session welcomes contributions that address energy transition from various perspectives, e.g. (but not limited to): energy production, transmission, storage, smart systems, efficiency, human behavior, energy markets and legislation, energy saving. In particular, we welcome contributions that address energy transition from a holistic point of view, that integrates the technological with societal aspects.

Storage of energy and carbon dioxide in subsurface geological formations is of key importance in the green shift: relying on renewables, zero carbon power and heat generation. The suitability of subsurface storage sites depends on the properties and integrity of the reservoir and its confining units under thermal, mechanical, hydraulic and chemical stress. Secure subsurface storage requires geological knowledge and sound risk evaluations, which in turn is essential for obtaining public acceptance of these technologies. This session offers a platform for inter-disciplinary scientific exchange between different branches of storage expertise. It addresses storage of fluids in geological reservoirs at all scales, from laboratory experiments to full-scale storage projects. Individual studies and active projects integrating elements of the storage chain as well as field projects focused on geological storage as pathways for a low carbon future are invited.

Relevant topics include but are not limited to:
• Regional and local characterization of storage formations, caprocks, and faults as well as their behaviour during injection and storage, including long-term response
• Evaluation of available infrastructure and injection strategies, physical and chemical reservoir response
• Geophysical and geochemical monitoring for safe and cost-efficient storage
• Coupling of different energy storage types in a carbon neutral power system
• Heat exchange systems, including geothermal energy utilization
• Public perception of subsurface storage in energy systems

Suitable contributions can address, but are not limited to:
• Field testing and experimental approaches aimed at characterizing the site, its key characteristics and the behaviour of the injected fluid
• Studies of natural analogue sites and lessons learnt for site characterisation and monitoring techniques
• Laboratory experiments investigating fluid-rock-interactions
• Risk evaluations and storage capacity estimates
• Numerical modelling of injectivity, fluid migration, trapping efficiency and pressure response as well as simulations of geochemical reactions

Geoscience knowledge is essential to investigate safety requirements that are established by national agencies to construct a geological disposal facility for high-level and/or long-lived radioactive waste in a specific selected site. Safety requirements include i) isolation of the nuclear waste from humans and the accessible biosphere, ii) containment e. g. by retention and retardation of contaminants, iii) limited water flow to the geo-engineered facility and iv) long-term geological stability of the site. Experiences in many countries have shown that acceptable conditions for selecting a disposalconstruction site can be found in diverse rock types as granites, metamorphic basement rocks, plastic clays, indurated claystones, evaporites, porous volcanic tuffs and highly compacted volcanic tuffs.
This session is a forum for discussing challenging issues faced by geoscientists including

Thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) modellingprocesses with implications onf radionuclide migration transport and chemical effects on barrier performance

Studies related to the migration of radionuclides through the multibarrier system and radionuclide-rock interaction

Thermodynamics databases and geochemical properties of repository -relevant materials in different host -rocks

Water-rock interactions and flow and transport modellingincluding effects of porewater chemistry and drilling and borehole fluids in hydrogeological site characterization

Characterization of natural and repository-induced bio-geo-chemical effects in repositories

Linking hydrosphere, geosphere and biosphere in long-term evolution studies, including internal and external geodynamic processes

Data digitalization/management and parameter collection

Contributions on the above topics can include all aspects covering lab-scale experimentation, large-scale experiments in underground research laboratories, observation of natural analogues, physics- and data-driven modelling and code development. Contributions dealing with low-level waste and surface disposal are also welcome.

Thermal Energy Storage (TES) is a key component for an efficient energy supply and for achieving a low-carbon energy balance. TES allows a flexibility of storage volume and storage time, and represents a cross-sector technology as it is coupling heat, cooling energy, and electricity. This session is dedicated to Underground Thermal Energy Storage (UTES) technologies, their performance and engineering, and new insights into related heat transport processes in the subsurface. In particular, the focus is on Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES), Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) and related ground based variants such as pit storage and artificial water-gravel storage basins. The aim of this session is to overcome technical obstacles concerning the design and sustainable operation of TES. We want to improve our understanding of any UTES-related thermal, hydraulic and environmental effects. In a broader context, we invite contributions that show how to enhance social acceptance of UTES and how to integrate various renewable energy sources (e.g., geothermal, solar, waste heat) in UTES technologies. Furthermore, the session aims to provide an overview of the current and future research in the field, covering any temporal or spatial scale. Both in research and in practice, accurate characterization of subsurface flow and heat transport based on observations of induced or natural variations of the thermal regime are essential. We invite contributions that deliver new insight into advances in experimental design, reports from new field observations, as well as demonstration of sequential or coupled modelling concepts. The seasonal and long-term development of thermal and mechanical conditions in aquifers, and heat transfer across aquifer boundaries are focus points. This also includes the role of groundwater in the context of UTES and geothermal energy use for predicting the long-term performance of geothermal systems (storage and production of heat), and integration in urban planning. There are many ongoing research projects studying heat as a natural or anthropogenic tracer, and which try to improve thermal response testing in aquifers. Such techniques are of great potential for characterizing aquifers, flow conditions, and crucial transport processes, such as mechanical dispersion. Understanding the interaction of hydraulic, thermal and mechanical processes is a major challenge in modern hydrogeology and in particular relevant for many UTES variants.

This session covers all methods and approaches used for registering, processing and understanding of magnetic anomalies for geological, environmental and resources purposes. It will concern potential field data from satellite missions to airborne and detailed ground-based arrays. Contributions presenting the theoretical, mathematical and computational progress of data modelling techniques as well as new case studies of geophysical and geological interest are welcome. This session will also encourage presentations on compilation methods of heterogenous data sets, multiscale and multidisciplinary approaches for natural resources exploration and geological gas storage purposes, and other environmental applications. Potential field applications in exploration and geological interpretation of magnetic anomalies, jointly with other geodata, are warmly welcome

First part - Mining the future

Research and innovation in exploration and mining of raw materials is increasingly focused on the prospect of developing new methods and technologies to reduce the environmental footprint of mineral extraction and exploration.

The robotization of exploration/production platforms, such as robotic autonomous explorers and miners, will allow to reconsider “non-economical” deposits (abandoned, small, ultra-depth), and to open as well towards the autonomous exploration and exploitation of other non-terrestrial bodies, including asteroids and moons.

Technological advances in the production process, included, but not limited to, X-ray sensors, hyper spectral techniques, LIBS, electromagnetic, combined with machine learning, AI models and efficient mechatronic solutions, will pave the way to a green mining industry.

We welcome contributions from researchers working on applied or interdisciplinary studies associated with mining exploration, geophysics, geochemistry, metallurgy, selective mining.

Second part - Novel developments in understanding the petrogenesis of REE resources

As a result of the critical need for rare earth elements (REE) in new technologies, in particular green energy production, the number of geological studies focusing on their ore formation have recently increased. REE deposits form in a variety of igneous and sedimentary environments. However, depending on factors such as relative and absolute REE content, mineralogy of the REE-bearing phases, host rock properties etc., their economic value can vary significantly. In addition to economic geology, REE deposits are ideal laboratories for understanding the elemental and isotopic behaviour of these elements in different geological environments, as well as the petrogenesis of their host rocks (e.g., carbonatites, alkaline igneous rocks, laterites, phosphorites etc.).
In this session, we will discuss new developments in understanding the formation of already known and recently discovered REE deposits. Studies based on different methodologies including new mathematical modelling techniques, field mapping, experimental petrology, mineralogical observations, in-situ and whole rock elemental and isotopic characterization will be discussed.

We welcome submission of studies conducted on different geological environments with different techniques discussing the conditions leading to concentration (and possibly differentiation) of the REE.

Meeting the climate goals and supplying the needs of society and industry could increase the production of minerals by nearly 500% by 2050. These targets require the pursuit of increasingly diffuse and lower-grade deposits, which present emerging environmental, societal, and technological challenges for mine waste management. The extraction and processing of mineral resources generate a vast amount of solid and liquid waste globally (i.e., billions of tons of waste rock, tailings, slag, and fly ashes). All these materials can negatively affect surrounding environments via poor-quality drainage and air pollution. However, mine residues also bear significant amounts of minerals (e.g., residual ores, rare earth elements (REE), critical raw materials (CRM)), which have the potential to become mineral resources. In the last decades, mining activity and extractive waste management were approached considering the environmental hazards and landscape degradation. But nowadays, innovative and technological processes allow us to reduce, reuse and recycle such industrial residues. More sustainable exploitation practices give us opportunities to exploit the enormous volumes of mineral waste as an important source of raw materials. Yet, there are further challenges related to exploring, characterising, recovering, reprocessing and testing recovered materials, and modelling mine wastes to realistically assess the prospects for sustainable exploitation. It should become the norm to maximise the use of resources to reduce the volume of disposed materials and to mitigate the risk of environmental damage associated with the increasing global demand for raw materials and mineral resources.
In this session we will discuss:
-Sustainable mine waste management strategies
-Innovative tools and enhanced methodologies in active and legacy sites for environmental/risk monitoring
-Identification of potential secondary resources (e.g., REEs, CRM)
-Characterisation of geomaterials, their environmental interactions and decay
-Technological developments for waste sampling, characterisation and environmental assessment
-Innovative mineral exploration, extraction, and (re)processing technologies, including geometallurgy
-Mine waste sites rehabilitation and repurposing
Part of this session is related to the UNESCO IGCP-746 project RESOURCES4ALL
Keywords: extractive waste; circular economy; sustainable mining; raw materials and critical raw materials characterization, mine waste management

In the face of ecological collapse and natural resources depletion, largely driven by our current linear economic system and exacerbated by continue economic growth, a new sustainability framework proposes to “bend” linear process and create a circular economy (CE). The aim of this economic circularity is to feedback energy and materials into the economic system as much as possible, resulting on a net reduction in the extraction and transformation of energy and materials from ecosystems and the generation of emissions and waste, with respect to economic activity (an eco-economic decoupling).
The extent to which this new economic paradigm becomes a reality depends on our ability to solve several economic transformation challenges and on being able to accurately assess the net savings of energy and materials and the reductions in emissions and waste that would constitute an absolute eco-economic decoupling.
In CE, waste is used as a resource by closing material loops through different types and levels of recovery. The objective of product recovery management is to recover as much of the economic (and ecological) value as reasonably possible, thereby reducing the ultimate quantities of waste (Thierry et al., 1995).
This session presents studies related to:
1. Resource extraction/recovery from wastes
2. Metals and REE extraction and recovery techniques
3. Reuse of waste materials in construction materials
4. Methods to quantify the CE
5. CE models and alternative value chains of secondary resources
This session also welcomes contributions that address the CE, including critical analyses, case studies, and monitoring frameworks that consider the energy and geo-resources (and/or their corresponding emissions and wastes) associated to economic activities/sectors. In particular, contributions that assess the decarbonization and/or dematerialization of energy systems, water systems, and/or food systems, from the perspective of (but not limited to) the net use of energy, water, and minerals, and the generation of GHG emissions, across value chains (hence, works that apply Input-Output Analysis and/or Life-Cycle Assessments are particularly welcomed). Lastly, studies that delve into the socio-political arrangements that allow (or obstruct) economic circularity transformations are also included.

Numerous cases of induced/triggered seismicity resulting either directly or indirectly from injection/extraction associated with anthropogenic activity related to geo-resources exploration have been reported in the last decades. Induced earthquakes felt by the general public can often negatively affect public perception of geo-energies and may lead to the cancellation of important projects. Furthermore, large earthquakes may jeopardize wellbore stability and damage surface infrastructure. Thus, monitoring and modeling processes leading to fault slip, either seismic or aseismic, are critical to developing effective and reliable forecasting methodologies during deep underground exploitation. The complex interaction between injected fluids, subsurface geology, stress interactions, and resulting fault slip requires an interdisciplinary approach to understand the triggering mechanisms, and may require taking coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical processes into account.
In this session, we invite contributions from research aimed at investigating the interaction of the above processes during exploitation of underground resources, including hydrocarbon extraction, wastewater disposal, geothermal energy exploitation, hydraulic fracturing, gas storage and production, mining, and reservoir impoundment for hydro-energy. We particularly encourage novel contributions based on laboratory and underground near-fault experiments, numerical modeling, the spatio-temporal relationship between seismic properties, injection/extraction parameters, and/or geology, and fieldwork. Contributions covering both theoretical and experimental aspects of induced and triggered seismicity at multiple spatial and temporal scales are welcome.

A predictive knowledge of fault and fracture zones and their transmissibility can have an enormous impact on the viability of geothermal, carbon capture, energy and waste storage projects. Understanding the role and the effects played by fault and fracture zones, physical properties of the system (e.g. frictional strength, cohesion and permeability) on the in-situ fluid behaviour can generate considerable advantages during exploration and management of these reservoirs and repositories. Generating realistic models of the subsurface requires detailed information on the deformation processes, structure and properties of fault and fracture zones. To create accurate and realistic models, we need to characterise the geometry and the distribution of faults and fractures, as well as the mechanical and petrophysical properties of the fractured rocks. The properties and the evolution of faulted/fractured rocks can be evaluated using a combination of laboratory data, well data and outcrop analogues which then constitute the backbone of discrete fracture network (DFN) modelling and robust numerical flow models.

We encourage researchers on applied or interdisciplinary energy studies associated with low carbon technologies (geothermal, repositories, hydrogeology, CCS) and modelling of fractured media (e.g. DFN) to come forward for this session. We look forward to interdisciplinary studies which use a combination of methods to analyse rock deformation processes and the role of faults and fractures in subsurface energy systems, including but not restricted to outcrop studies, laboratory measurements, analytical methods and numerical modelling. We are also interested in studies working across several different scales and that try to address the knowledge gap between laboratory scale measurements and reservoir scale processes.

Geological media are a strategic resource for the forthcoming energy transition and constitute an important ally in the fight to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Several energy and environmental processes in the subsurface involve multi-physical interactions between the porous and fractured rock, and the fluids filling the voids: changes in pore pressure and temperature, rock deformation and chemical reactions occur simultaneously and impact each other. This characteristic has profound implications on the energy production and the waste storage. Forecasts are bounded to the adequate understanding of field data associated with thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes and predictive capabilities heavily rely on the quality of the integration between the input data (laboratory and field evidence) and the mathematical models describing the evolution of the multi-physical systems. This session is dedicated to studies investigating all or part of these THMC interactions by means of experimental, analytical, numerical, multi-scale, data-driven and artificial intelligence methods, as well as studies focused on laboratory characterization and on gathering and interpreting in-situ geological and geophysical evidence of the multi-physical behavior of rocks. Welcomed contributions include approaches covering applications of carbon capture and storage (CCS), geothermal systems, gas storage, energy storage, mining, reservoir management, reservoir stimulation, fluid injection-induced seismicity and radioactive waste storage.

Earthquake swarms are characterized by a complex temporal evolution and a delayed occurrence of the largest magnitude event. In addition, seismicity often manifests with intense foreshock activity or develops in more complex sequences where doublets or triplets of large comparable magnitude earthquakes occur. The difference between earthquake swarms and these complex sequences is subtle and usually flagged as such only a posteriori. This complexity derives from aseismic transient forcing acting on top of the long-term tectonic loading: pressurization of crustal fluids, slow-slip and creeping events, and at volcanoes, magmatic processes (i.e. dike and sill intrusions or magma degassing). From an observational standpoint, these complex sequences in volcanic and tectonic regions share many similarities: seismicity rate fluctuations, earthquakes migration, and activation of large seismogenic volume despite the usual small seismic moment released. The underlying mechanisms are local increases of the pore-pressure, loading/stressing rate due to aseismic processes (creeping, slow slip events), magma-induced stress changes, earthquake-earthquake interaction via static stress transfer or a combination of those. Yet, the physics behind such transients, seismo-genesis and the ultimate reasons for the occurrence of swarm-like rather than mainshock-aftershocks sequences, is still far beyond a full understanding.

This session aims at putting together studies of swarms and complex seismic sequences driven by aseismic transients in order to enhance our insights on both the physics of such transients and the earthquake source properties. Contributions focusing on the characterization of these sequences in terms of spatial and temporal evolution, source and scaling properties, and insight on the triggering physical processes are welcome. Multidisciplinary studies using observation complementary to seismological data, such as fluid geochemistry, deformation, and geology are also welcome, as well as laboratory and numerical modeling simulating the mechanical condition yielding to swarm-like and complex seismic sequences.