The concept of co-design is often cited in connection with the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). Still, collaboration across disciplines is uncommon, despite the urgency to address fundamental questions about how society can cope with and adapt to climate and environmental changes.
Social sciences encompass the study of human society and social relationships, including fields like economics, law, psychology, and politics. Thus, integrating social scientists into the research design of human-centred environmental studies is a logical consideration.
With the increased digitisation of society and research, new opportunities have emerged for more engaging collaboration among disciplines through data sharing, reuse, blending, and enrichment. There is, however, a prerequisite: the data must be trustworthy, well-curated, and interoperable.
CESSDA ERIC (https://www.cessda.eu/), the umbrella organisation of European Data Archives in the Social Sciences, has accumulated expertise in FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) research data management, curation and long-term preservation over the past 50 years. CESSDA promotes the DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) standard (http://ddialliance.org/) and has recently adopted the DDI-CDI (Cross-Domain Integration), a standard for cross-disciplinarity work.
As a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), CESSDA, along with 27 other pan-European research infrastructures, has gained visibility among European decision-makers as a strategic asset for European research. This collective presence provides a framework for collaborative development and knowledge sharing in community practices, tools, policies, and standards.
Collaboration between social science research and other disciplines is facilitated through five Science Clusters. In particular, SSHOC (the Social Science and Humanities Open Cloud - https://sshopencloud.eu/) and ENVRI (Environmental Research Infrastructures- https://envri.eu/) approaches can serve as a template for a) researchers to establish national or local modes of cooperation to pool resources or exchange knowledge; b) advancing standard agreements among research domains and beyond; c) supporting cross-disciplinarity initiatives such as OSCARS (https://oscars-project.eu/) or the WorldFAIR project (https://worldfair-project.eu/); and d) engaging with existing national or new data research infrastructures.
How to cite: Wolff-Boenisch, B.: Social and Earth System Sciences – A Not-So Unlikely Pair in the Quest of Tackling Human-Centred Challenges , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4397, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4397, 2025.
Environmental concern plays a central role in researching possibilities for reducing environmentally critical behaviour and reducing the ecological footprint. It has been found that both individual and context factors are related to environmental concern. Significantly, personal and national wealth has been found to be related to environmental concern. On the individual level, environmental concern is also related to political attitudes, gender, age, education, and social trust. On the national level, environmental concern, in addition to economic wealth, is related to population density. Much attention has recently been given to extreme weather events and other natural disasters, realizing that some of them are occurring more often or have more severe consequences due to global climate change. The relationship of these disasters with public opinion about environmental issues is complex to analyze. One problem is that public attention is sometimes only of short duration. Another is that attention is dependent on media coverage. However, increasing the number and severity of environmental disasters may lead to increased general awareness about environmental problems, and thus, investigating this issue on a long-term scale is promising. With data from the International Social Survey Programme, a period from 1993 to 2020 with four waves can be investigated. It contains survey questions about environmental concern, behavioral intention, attitudes toward the economy, and demographic information about the respondents. In addition, the individual-level survey questions from ISSP 2020 can help investigate if disasters affecting the individual's neighbourhood have an influence on environmental concerns. On the national level, information from the World Bank about GDP, population density, urban population, and income inequality can be included. Also, on the national level, data from EM-DAT (www.emdat.be) is used to analyze the relationship between natural disasters (e.g., storms, floods, extreme weather events, etc) in a country and the level of environmental concern. EM-DAT gives information about the number and relevance of disasters across the world from 1900 to the present, covering disasters that have at least ten fatalities, a hundred affected people, a declaration of emergency, or a call for international assistance.
How to cite: Zenk-Möltgen, W.: Investigating how the occurrence and impacts of natural disasters are related to environmental concern, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8443, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8443, 2025.
Climate services seek to provide information that enables climate-informed decision making by non-climate scientists. Often, especially where climate services are co-produced, boundary agents (typically social scientists) act between these groups to facilitate the seamless flow of knowledge in both directions and create climate services that are scientifically accurate and apt for building climate resilience. Or at least that is the idealised aspiration.
In practice, developing climate services that are both useful and used involves contending with a wide range of factors beyond the project boundaries, ranging from the current limitations of climate science to societal power (im)balances and to the fitness of purpose of any service to a decision context. Different actors involved in developing and using climate services view them in different ways and hold different preferences on what constitutes a successful climate service. Thus, creating criteria to evaluate a climate service has an inherent subjectivity and designing a holistic evaluation framework requires drawing out these perspectives and preferences from decision-makers, climate scientists and boundary agents, and then bringing them together.
Impetus4Change (I4C, https://impetus4change.eu/) is a Horizon Europe project joining 18 institutions from 8 countries that aims to improve the quality and usability of near-term climate information in cities and regions. Throughout the entirety of the project we are simultaneously co-producing climate services in four Demonstrator cities: Barcelona, Bergen, Paris, and Prague. This involves three stages: co-exploring the problems, solutions and realities that decision makers face; co-designing mock-ups of climate services and then co-developing these through Adaptalabs (highly interactive, transdisciplinary hackathons). The entire process is co-evaluated to capture lessons learned and combine these with detailed analysis of climate adaptation knowledge networks to explore the services’ replicability.
This presentation will cover the steps taken to generate tailored frameworks for evaluating urban climate services, including the generation of ideas from 60 participants of the first Adaptalab, the synthesis of pillars of the framework, and the tailoring of these pillars to each of the four Demonstrator cities. Using the Barcelona case study as an example, we show that actor perspectives on what is important vary not just in terms of what to assess, but also when. We conclude with examples of how we might evaluate different aspects of the co-production process, its outputs and its outcomes and our experiences operationalising the framework.
How to cite: Pickard, S., Bojovic, D., Baulenas, E., and Saklani, S.: Co-evaluating urban climate services: perspectives from climate scientists, decision makers and boundary agents on what makes “good” services, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18189, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18189, 2025.
This contribution presents the findings of the Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2024, an extensive interdisciplinary assessment of the plausiblity of sustainable climate change adaptation. In light of insufficient social momentum toward decarbonization and the physical realities of regional climate variability and extreme events, adaptation is increasingly crucial. However, it is important to recognize that not all adaptation measures are inherently sustainable; some may inadvertently heighten vulnerabilities, particularly in the long term.
Our assessment links the plausibility of deep decarbonization to ten social drivers identified within the realms of politics, law, economics, and culture. We evaluate the global dynamics of these drivers to determine how they support or impede a low-carbon transition aimed at achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This investigation underscores the complex interplay between social dynamics and physical processes in shaping conditions conducive to sustainable climate change adaptation.
The analysis of physical processes explores the interactions between regional variability and extreme climatic events, providing a scientific foundation for understanding the differing regional and local demands for adaptation to anticipated climate scenarios. Our findings stress the necessity of explicitly accounting for internal variability to improve predictions related to extreme events. The quality of such predictions is influenced by the inherent uncertainties and limitations of climate models. Addressing these uncertainties is vital for communities as they navigate the challenges of climate change adaptation.
To further investigate the contextual conditions that influence sustainable adaptation, we conducted nine case studies in urban, rural, and coastal settings across diverse regional contexts. These case studies—focused on Hamburg, São Paulo, Ho Chi Minh City, Lower Saxony (Germany), Kunene (Namibia), the Nepal Highlands, the German North Sea coast, Taiwan, and the Maldives—examine barriers to sustainable climate change adaptation, seeking localized responses to the question: “Under what conditions is sustainable climate change adaptation plausible?”
The assessments reveal that climate change adaptation is fundamentally a localized and socially embedded process, shaped by politico-administrative dynamics and socio-cultural dimensions such as social inequality, gender issues, and varying epistemologies. Our comprehensive analysis of the case studies offers insights into diverse adaptation strategies, categorized as coping, incremental, and transformative responses. A significant finding is the predominance of coping and incremental adaptations, underscoring the influence of governance, technical path dependencies, and potential lock-ins, which pose the risk of maladaptation in evolving physical conditions.
The implications of this analysis highlight the critical need to bridge implementation gaps through climate action strategies that incorporate legally binding, accountable objectives. Furthermore, the promotion of participatory governance and the integration of diverse ways of knowing and addressing natural contingencies and hazards into climate action are essential for fostering effective adaptation.
Engels, Anita, Marotzke, Jochem, Ratter, Beate, Gonçalves Gresse, Eduardo, López-Rivera, Andrés, Pagnone, Anna and Wilkens, Jan. Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2024: Conditions for Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation, Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839470817
How to cite: Pagnone, A., Engels, A., Marotzke, J., Ratter, B., Gonçalves Gresse, E., Lopéz-Rivera, A., and Wilkens, J.: Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2024. Conditions for Sustainable Climate Change Adaptation, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-16955, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-16955, 2025.
Research related to the physical sciences often lacks thoughtful specificity related to the research context. In particular, Berlin, Germany’s diverse political history has had significant impact on its built environment and urban form. Environmental concerns have a long history in Berlin, with early discourse focused on public health and green space availability related to the dense tenement blocks resulting from the Hobrecht Plan (1862), which dictated the form of the city’s early expansion. The rise of German nature and homeland protection movements in the late 19th and early 20th century included many anti-urban sentiments, and while Nazi plans to redevelop Berlin with green corridors radiating out from the center never materialized, a third of the city would be destroyed and the city split into two. This destruction left numerous voids across the city, yielding a unique and characteristic ruderal or wasteland ecology. Particularly after the fall of the wall, many former railyards and airports were converted to parks and greenspaces. With legal requirements at the international (UN Climate Agreement), national (The 2023 Climate Protection Program of the Federal Government), and city (Berlin Climate Protection and Energy Transition Act) level related to reducing CO2 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the specific pathways that Berlin will take are dictated by this complicated urban history. As patterns of urban biogeochemical cycling are a legacy of both manifested form and ideological histories within any given context, Berlin offers a unique history in which to understand urban carbon cycling. Potential sites for carbon sinks such as soils, vegetation, and buildings, and existing sites of emissions including industry, buildings, and transportation, all exist within this historic context of urban transformation and redevelopment, with future visions for the city being extensions of a longer socioenvironmental and political narrative. This research offers a methodological framework for integrating historical analysis, policy, and biogeochemical data for improving understandings related to urban carbon cycling. In applying this framework to Berlin, insight is gained in how the city can improve urban planning and policy implementation, particularly for the goal of reducing CO2 and GHG emissions.
How to cite: Ryan, C. and Churkina, G.: Environmental History, Policy, and Carbon Flows and Stocks in Berlin, Germany, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19411, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19411, 2025.
Climate change and urbanization contribute to uneven distributions of heat exposure that disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities resulting in environmental (in)justice. While studies in the USA highlight the elevated heat exposure faced by low-income and ethnic minority groups, similar insights are lacking for other countries. This knowledge gap impedes a comprehensive understanding of environmental (in)justice experienced by various socio-economic and ethnic groups and hampers the identification of inadequacy in urban planning policies.
This research seeks to bridge the gap between social and environmental sciences to address environmental (in)justice by establishing a link between extreme heat (at both regional and country level) and socio-economic disparities within individual municipalities or counties. So far our analysis covers Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany and the U.K. Using remotely sensed satellite data for Land Surface temperature mapping for summer and Census data of countries, the analysis explores various socio-economic indicators—such as education levels, age demographics, and the proportion of foreign populations.
By recognizing the unequal distribution of urban heat and its disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities, there emerges a critical mandate to prioritize equitable urban planning policies. This research underscores the urgency for policymakers and urban planners to prioritize environmental justice interventions and integrate strategies that aim to reduce race and class disparities concerning urban heat. The research also serves as a model for similar analyses globally fostering inclusive, equitable and resilient urban landscapes.
How to cite: Chawla, J., Varma, V., and Benz, S.: Examining Race and Class Disparities in Urban Heat: Towards Environmental Justice in Urban Planning, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12759, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12759, 2025.
Society and the natural environment are deeply interconnected. The decline in the quality and extent of our natural capital (NC) and the ecosystem services we depend on poses a significant challenge to our ability to withstand and adapt to shocks caused by climate change, population growth and environmental changes. Urbanisation has led to substantial environmental degradation, increasing flood risk, urban heat and air pollution while significantly impacting societal health and wellbeing. According to the WHO and the European Commission, there is an urgent need for innovative solutions including for multidisciplinary teams to collaboratively address the mental health and wellbeing crisis. This has also been highlighted as an essential step in addressing the environmental emergencies we face.
The VNiC-Health (Valuing Natural Capital in Communities for Health) project advances a novel, adaptable framework and systems modelling tool for evaluating urban natural capital by integrating health and wellbeing impacts with the natural environment. Developed using a stakeholder led participatory systems modelling approach, the framework uses physiological, psychological, and environmental data to quantify the links between NC quality, human health, and wellbeing. Pilot studies in Dublin's Ballymun community demonstrated that high-quality NC significantly improves emotional, psychological, and physiological health, whereas low-quality spaces negatively affect wellbeing. These findings underscore the importance of integrating high quality natural capital into urban planning and healthcare strategies.
How to cite: O'Keeffe, J., Sinnott, F., Clinton, M., Campbell, S., Kaleta, B., Harper, A., and Burke, J.: Valuing Natural Capital in Communities for Health , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9346, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9346, 2025.
Whether or not we acknowledge the Anthropocene as a geological epoch (AWG 2024) – it is obvious that humanity has altered the Earth’s face and it is certain that our behaviour will worsen bioclimatic conditions and resources in the future. Thus, it is inherent that environmental issues are also societal and cultural issues. Industrial societies have not only caused damage to the environment but virtually colonised past and present – Nature, other cultures, even our own. Do we refrain from “colonising the future”, an assertion by the early German-Austrian futurologist Robert Jungk over 70 years ago (Jungk 1954)? Is the Australian philosopher Roman Krznaric right in claiming: “We treat the future like a distant colonial outpost devoid of people, where we can freely dump ecological degradation, technological risk and nuclear waste, and which we can plunder as we please” (Krznaric 2020)? We are obsessed over instantaneous benefit what Krznaric labels the “tyranny of the now”, a kind of presentism that is one of the underlying characteristics of our behaviour. Well, we cannot undo what we did, but we might change – with one essential prerequisite: to overcome our fallacy to focus on (our) present.
As historians of Nature, geoscientists are sensitive to the long term. The controversial environmental issues of nuclear waste, special waste, carbon storage (cf. Flüeler 2023) or “forever chemicals” are symptomatically longlasting. This contribution aims to explore how society and technology may find sustainable ways to cope with these issues in the long future. They not only need long-term safety demonstrations but also long-term institutional arrangements and engagement of scientists, engineers, waste producers, public administrators, NGOs and the public. This includes an adequate transfer of knowledge, concept and system understanding, experience and documentation to these audiences. Substantive and institutional approaches were investigated (Flüeler 2024) and are developed, such as criteria and means for individual “long-term” literacy and resilience, constitutions or declarations, legislations, governments, custodians like “guardians for future generations” or “councils for the future”, other collaborative approaches, knowledge bases or platforms and networks – goal- and process-centred, from personal to social to political levels. The Copernican principle for space stating that humans are not privileged observers of the universe (Peacock 1999) must be enlarged to time, for environmental policy and governance are only sustainable if they are long-term.
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AWG, Anthropocene Working Group 2024. https://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene.
Flüeler, T. 2023. Governance of Radioactive Waste, Special Waste and Carbon Storage. Literacy in Dealing with Long-
Term Controversial Sociotechnical Issues. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-
03902-7.
Flüeler, T. 2024. Decolonising the future – how come and how? Geosciences, waste and long-term issues. 22nd Swiss
Geoscience Meeting, Basel.
Jungk, R. 1954. Tomorrow Is Already here. Simon & Schuster, New York (orig. German: Die Zukunft hat schon begonnen.
Scherz, Bern, 1952).
Krznaric, R. 2020. The Good Ancestor. How to Think Long-term in a Short-term World. WH Allan, London.
Peacock, J.A. 1999. Cosmological Physics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
How to cite: Flüeler, T.: How to abandon the ‘tyranny of the now’? Decolonising the future of the Anthropocene. Geosciences, waste and the long term, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3562, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3562, 2025.
Helicopter research, also called parachute research or neo-colonial research, occurs when research in a country –typically a low or medium income country– is conducted by researchers from outside that country, with no or little involvement of local researchers. The target country thus serves as a location worthy of research, but only to the extent that data, samples or measurements can be obtained there by the foreign researchers. All other aspects of the research process –problem formulation, research design, data analysis, publishing of results– occur abroad.
Helicopter research is problematic because researchers in the target country do not benefit from the research conducted within their country. Instead, the benefits of the research (prestige, career progression, future funding opportunities) all accrue to the foreign researchers – typically from more privileged, better funded, better resourced countries. Helicopter research thus perpetuates historical power imbalances, stifles investment in local academic capacity building, and thereby maintains dependencies on external expertise, facilities and resources.
Here, I present an analysis of published literature to evaluate spatial patterns and temporal trends in the occurrence of helicopter research within the geosciences over the last 50 years, focussing on geology, geomorphology, hydrology and quaternary sciences. Over 19000 papers addressing geoscientific research in developing countries are identified, and their author affiliations extracted to evaluate contributions with and without local authors. The data is then analysed to: (i) identify countries/regions that are less prone or more prone to helicopter research; (ii) assess temporal trends in the prevalence in helicopter research in the geosciences; and (iii) identify changes in the geopolitical characteristics of helicopter research in the geosciences. Although focussing on geosciences in a broad sense, the general findings are thought to transcend disciplines and be equally applicable to other disciplines.
How to cite: Van De Wiel, M.: Helicopter Research in the Geosciences, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19257, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19257, 2025.
Globally, there are many examples of women’s knowledge and expertise being overlooked by scientists, decision makers, and even community organisations. Women’s work is often regarded as domestic and thus less significant than men’s work, even when women’s work involves managing mangroves, sustaining diverse communities of life, and educating the next generation. This is also the case in Papua, where outsiders are often seen as the real experts in conservation and development. When women’s expertise is minimised over a long period of time, women may not see themselves as experts, and thus not assert their knowledge and authority when they might. So, we see our project as both helping to reveal and document knowledge that has historically been ignored, and affirming for Indigenous women and communities that women’s work with mangroves is a critical form of expertise that should inform current and future responses to the climate crisis.”
How to cite: Bless, A. E., Morimuzemdi, A. S., Edowai, D., Huwae, M., Unggirwalu, A., Tahoba, A., and Lekito, K.: Empowering Woman in Coastal Community To Fight Climate Crisis , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20291, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20291, 2025.
How do key stakeholders shift blame for water crises, leaving local communities to shoulder the consequences? Using Chile as the backdrop, we debunk the layers of blame narratives in three case studies—avocado farming, forestry and rural gentrification. Through a sociohydrological lens, the study makes a case for rethinking how we manage water and hold stakeholders accountable. Water extractivism isn’t just about moving water from one place to another—it’s about who controls it, who benefits, who’s left behind and who is blamed for it all. Chile offers a prime example, where decades of neoliberal policy have prioritised corporate profits over people’s basic human rights. The paper aims to unpack the complex dynamics of water governance by looking at how social and political forces shape water injustice.
Blame as a Strategy
Powerful stakeholders often deflect responsibility. Some common tactics include discrediting critics (i.e., environmental activists are dismissed as obstacles to progress), twisting the narrative (i.e., painting a rosier picture of industrial practices) or pushing neoliberal ideals (i.e., communities are told to ‘reinvent themselves’). As a result, the root causes—flawed policies and overwhelming corporate power—are left unaddressed, while the blame is shifted onto affected communities for their hardships.
Three case studies
We explored three real-world examples from Chile. Each one provides insights into how water extractivism plays out and how blame gets passed around.
- i) Avocado, or "Green Gold": Avocados are celebrated as a superfood, but in Chile, they’ve become a symbol of water injustice. In regions like Valparaiso, intensive avocado farming consumes staggering amounts of water, leaving little for local communities. With groundwater depletion, families struggle for drinking water while depending on avocado jobs. Meanwhile, industry leaders frame water scarcity as a "management issue," without addressing their disproportionate use.
- ii) Forestry model: Chile’s forestry boom, fuelled by exotic species like eucalyptus and pine, was hailed as an economic success. But these fast-growing plantations have come at a cost, including ecological fallout (i.e., reduced stream flows, eroded soils and disappearing biodiversity), victims of extractivism being left out of the equation (i.e., small farmers and Indigenous forest-dependent communities) or deflection of responsibility (i.e., emphasising companies’ GDP contributions).
- iii) Urban-Rural Migration: The rise of remote work and affordable housing in rural areas has led to a surge in rural gentrification. But this trend isn’t without consequences, as shown by the total collapse of water bodies such as Aculeo Lake, once a thriving reservoir. This results from a combination of unregulated housing, agricultural demands and poor planning. Responsibility, however, is concealed by using an ‘easy’ scapegoat (i.e., climate change), overshadowing policy failures.
Conclusion
We uncovered common strategies being used in public discourse to both avoid responsibility and project responsibility onto others – key to address for effective water governance. Such strategies gaslight the victims of extractivism, instilling the belief that they themselves are responsible for their water poverty. By exposing how blame is weaponised, the paper calls for accountability to support fairer governance.
How to cite: Ayala, R., Hervé-Fernández, P., and Labbaf Khaneiki, M.: The Blame Game in Water Extractivism: Case studies from Chile, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3127, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3127, 2025.
If there is to be sustained, large-scale action to tackle climate change, there will have to be sustained, long-term, buy-in for that action from populations and electorates. This requires the link to be clearly made between global change (e.g. the target to limit global warming to less than 2oC above pre-industrial levels) and local impacts as they may be felt by individuals. In the media this link is often made via the consequences of extreme events such as floods, wildfires, and droughts; stark images of such events in the media are a significant part of the public narrative around climate change. Nevertheless, devastating though such events may be, it is easy, and perhaps reasonable, to believe that you as an individual might not be affected; you might well not get hit by a flood or a wildfire; you might “get lucky”. With many other political and social issues facing electorates it is perhaps not surprising therefore that action on climate is rarely voters’ top priority1.
However, this framing of the threats of climate change in terms of the risks of direct impacts, misses the essence of the relationship between physical climate change and society. In a recent paper2, Calel and Stainforth argue that changing physical risk profiles are likely to strain the underlying fabric of our societies in many ways. For instance, whether or not you are directly affected by climate extremes or other climate change impacts, the consequences of such events represent a drain on our economies which will necessarily lead to higher taxes and/or the reduction of funds for other priorities such as education, health care, infrastructure etc. The consequences will thus be felt across our societies, even by those not hit by floods or wildfires.
Calel and Stainforth call for more effort to be invested in bringing together expertise across the social and physical sciences to paint better pictures of the complex consequences of changing disaster risks for the whole of society. This in turn would enable more broadly relevant representations of climate change in the media and in public and political discourse. Given the complexity of the system and the deep uncertainties inherent in climate predictions3, storyline approaches4 will be a key tool for these trans-disciplinary approaches and for subsequent communication and engagement with decision makers.
These arguments will be presented and elaborated upon in this presentation.
References:
1 See, for instance, https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/trackers/the-most-important-issues-facing-the-country for a survey of the most important issues facing the UK.
2 Calel, R., Stainforth, D.A. Little floods everywhere: what will climate change mean for you?. Climatic Change 178, 1 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03819-x
3 Stainforth, D., “Predicting Our Climate Future: What we know, what we don’t know and what we can’t know”, Oxford University Press, 2023.
4 Shepherd, T.G., Boyd, E., Calel, R.A. et al. Storylines: an alternative approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change. Climatic Change 151, 555–571 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-018-2317-9
How to cite: Stainforth, D. and Calel, R.: The societal consequences of “little” floods everywhere, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12223, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12223, 2025.
Environmental challenges demand not only technological innovation but also critical interdisciplinary approaches that bridge the gap between science, society, and policy. The concept of Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTOs) exemplifies this intersection and offers a promising approach to monitoring progress in achieving environmental targets including in the areas of marine biodiversity, deep-seabed mining, fishing, shipping and plastic pollution.
Despite a rapidly expanding range of potential DTO applications, research into their social and political dimensions remains underdeveloped. This gap is particularly concerning, as we argue that DTOs are inherently contested, ambiguous and political: Firstly, DTOs can risk exacerbating global inequalities, given the unequal capacities to develop, access, and utilize ocean data, information, and DTO models and technologies. Secondly, they introduce a range of legal and political challenges, including uncertainties around data access, ownership, security, and sharing. Thirdly, to ensure ethical use of DTOs, they require a robust framework of norms, rules, and values. All these aspects, we argue, remain neglected amid the current “twin rush.”
To address these aspects and the overall lack of empirical social science research on the development and use of digital twins, the ERC project TwinPolitics (grant agreement No 101124903 – TwinPolitics – ERC-2024-STG) at the University of Vienna re-conceptualizes DTOs as a socio-technical relation shaped by specific institutional, political, and economic conditions within a hybrid environment of research, data, and observation. TwinPolitics seeks to unpack the emergence of so-called “digital twin politics” in international environmental governance by tackling key questions: How and why are DTOs developed by governments and utilized in marine scientific research? How are they designed to inform decision-making? To what extent are they, or could they be, integrated into multilateral governance?
By exploring how social science perspectives can deepen our understanding of DTOs, this presentation is particularly fitting for this session as it highlights the essential interplay between environmental and social sciences in addressing global sustainability challenges.
How to cite: Vadrot, A., Hirt, C., Nütz, F., Wieringa Hildebrand, E., and Lyu, W.: Digital twin politics: Unlocking the full potential of digital twins for sustainable ocean futures , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18308, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18308, 2025.
Understanding and enhancing the synergies between ecosystem services (ESs) and social governance are crucial for achieving sustainable social development. This study proposes a methodological framework to analyze the coupling coordination – representing the synergy – between the networks of water related ESs (flood regulation, water conservation, and soil retention) and their social governance. Shanxi Province, China served as the case study context. Results revealed that precipitation, landscape, and land use and land cover (LULC) were key drivers of spatiotemporal changes in water-related ESs within this semi-arid region. Spatially, flood regulation and soil retention services were generally higher in mountainous areas, while water conservation services predominated in the plains. Temporally, from 2010 to 2020, flood regulation and soil retention services showed notable increases, whereas water conservation services experienced a small decline. Trade-offs between the ESs were comprehensively driven by precipitation, landscape structure, and LULC dynamics. The Coupling coordination degree (CCD) between the networks of the water-related ESs and their social governance was found to be low, indicating significant spatial mismatches between social governance and the distribution of water-related ESs. Further results show that, the CCD exerted a measurable impact on the performance of these services. Specifically, flood regulation and soil retention services increased linearly with CCD, while water conservation services exhibited a U-shaped with CCD. This study proposed a novel social-ecological network approach to exploring the fostering synergies, this framework offers practical insights to promote win-win solutions for enhancing all water-related ESs in semi-arid regions.
How to cite: Lin, Y., Peng, J., Lin, Y., and Yu, S.: A social-ecological network approach to exploring synergies between water-related ecosystem services and social governance, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7988, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7988, 2025.
Coastal wetland governance involves the institutions, people, policies, laws, and norms that guide decision-making and responsibilities affecting coastal wetlands and their users. The unique wetland ecosystems motivate conservation efforts, while their natural resources can become targets of exploitation, leading to multiple conflicting interests. Co-creation processes between stakeholders, as a practice of collaborative management, can help mitigate conflicts but it requires the willingness to compromise, mutual understanding, and effective dialogue. The current work explores a co-creation process under the scope of an ongoing science-for-policy project, aimed at defining sustainable adaptation pathways for wetlands conservation and carbon sequestration management in the Ria Formosa lagoon. Co-creation methodologies are being employed at various stages, and include the exchange of information (maps, fact sheets, management plans, directives, etc.) and focus groups with involved partners, i.e., researchers, regional decision-makers, and managers. The scientific development of the project, including data collection and modelling scenarios is being guided by the choices made collaboratively between all stakeholders. Three methodologies are being used to evaluate the level of partner engagement and effectiveness of the collaboration: 1) analysis of qualitative information gathered at the beginning and end of the process; 2) monitoring the communication between stakeholders; and 3) analysis of the stakeholder’s perspectives on strategic plans and other documents, shown formally at focus groups meetings or through informal conversations. The results of this co-creation process are relevant to a) the research of methodologies best suited to co-participatory management practices for Natural Parks and b) the establishment of foundations in evidence-based land management foundations.
Acknowledgements: This study contributes to the project C-Land (CEXC/4647/2024), funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, and RestLands (ID 705677) funded by Planet Labs.
How to cite: Silva, M., Matias, A., Bharwany, B., Carneiro, I., Sousa, A., Ferreira, Ó., Kombiadou, K., Moreno Pires, S., and Carrasco, A. R.: Co-creation processes for conservation and ecosystem services management, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-927, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-927, 2025.
Understanding land use change dynamics is crucial for sustainable transformation, as land-use intensity affects ecosystem services and socio-ecological resilience. While much modelling effort has focused on economic and biophysical drivers, the role of psychological and social factors in shaping land use trajectories remains underexplored. However, empirical evidence suggests that socio-psychological factors significantly influence land managers' decision-making alongside economic considerations. To address this gap, we present a novel, generic model for social processes that we incorporate into a large-scale agent-based modelling framework for land use change. Our approach combines agent-based modelling with social network analysis, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to simulate land managers' decisions on land use intensification or extensification. We examine how attitudes, social influences, network characteristics, and demand-driven competition impact land use outcomes and ecosystem service provision. Using a global sensitivity analysis, we identify key drivers shaping land manager distribution across intensities. Our findings reveal that the demand for ecosystem services is the most influential factor for the abundance of high- and low-intensity land managers. However, once psychological and structural barriers - contributing to an overall inertia to adopting new behaviour - are removed, attitudes toward sustainable practices become the primary driver for low-intensity land use. Social influence significantly increases the prevalence of medium-intensity land use, particularly at the spatial border between high- and low-intensity managers. As adoption surpasses a critical mass, medium-intensity practices rapidly expand, while high-intensity practices decline. Social influence also drives spatial clustering of similar land-use intensities, reflecting homophily within land use communities where neighbouring managers adopt comparable strategies. These local clustering effects reinforce dominant practices, creating path-dependent transitions that are difficult to reverse. In contrast, distant social ties have minimal impact, emphasizing the importance of local network effects. We conclude that incorporating social processes into land use models leads to distinct behaviours, revealing threshold and lock-in dynamics. Our approach offers a generic method for enhancing land use models with social dynamics, providing a more holistic understanding of future trajectories and potential sustainability transitions in the land system.
How to cite: Hotz, R., Brown, C., Zeng, Y., Schmitt, T., and Rounsevell, M.: Agent-based modelling of social processes in land use change: Which influence have socio-psychological factors on shifts in land use intensity?, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19330, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19330, 2025.
Green spaces offer a variety of cultural ecosystem services that enhance the well-being of visitors. However, the specific landscape features that influence the provision of specific benefits are not yet fully understood. Factors such as the location of green spaces (e.g., mountain/rural, peri-urban, urban), the composition and configuration of landscape elements, and their seasonality likely play a significant role. Furthermore, challenges such as climate change, land use changes, pollution, and over-tourism may reduce the ability of these areas to provide cultural ecosystem services.
This study aimed to explore which landscape and spatial features enhance or hinder the provision of cultural ecosystem services. We conducted 35 semi-structured interviews with visitors to six green spaces located across a rural-urban gradient: two mountain areas in the Carpathians, two peri-urban spaces near Kraków, Poland, and two urban green spaces in Kraków.
Our findings reveal that visitors reported experiencing cultural ecosystem service benefits in all green spaces, though the intensity of these benefits varied by location. Landscape features had different impacts depending on the type of benefit. For some benefits, such as relaxation, greenery in general was the key element, while for others, such as strengthening social bonds, infrastructure features were more important. In addition, seasonality was crucial for certain benefits, such as educational or aesthetic values. Personal factors also played a crucial role in the perception of some benefits like social bonds, spirituality, or education.
By understanding the role of landscape features in enhancing cultural ecosystem services, we can develop land management strategies that prioritize human well-being while preserving other crucial services of green spaces, particularly regulatory ones, in the context of climate change and other global challenges.
The study was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland (OPUS-21; grant no. 2021/41/B/HS4/00648).
How to cite: Nowak-Olejnik, A., Hibner, J., Hałys, J., and Rechciński, M.: The Role of Landscape Features in Enhancing Cultural Ecosystem Services, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1444, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1444, 2025.
Urbanisation and biodiversity loss in urban sprawling areas diminish human-nature interactions, which could hinder nature conservation initiatives (Soga & Gaston, 2026). To evaluate whether a more biodiverse urban greenspace promotes human-nature interactions, we developed a survey to explore attitudes towards urban lawns and meadows among residents of the Helsinki metropolitan area.
About 70% of survey respondents were willing to participate in transforming a lawn into a meadow. Consequently, six lawns were transformed into meadows via voluntary participation (Trémeau et al. 2024). Biodiversity parameters, greenhouse gas dynamics and soil physicochemical properties between control lawns and transformed meadows were compared over three consecutive years, starting the year prior to the transformation. Since transformations, vegetation richness and diversity increased over time in transformed meadows, unlike in lawns, yet evenness decreased. Transformed meadows provided resources for 35 species of bees. Neither total ecosystem respiration rates nor nitrous oxide and methane fluxes differed between the two greenspace types. Similarly, none of the soil physicochemical properties differed between meadow and lawn soils. Neither meadow soil microbial communities nor bacterial or fungal biomasses significantly differed from those found in lawn soils, suggesting that any possible change in soil aspects takes a longer time to respond to changes in aboveground plant communities and management.
In parallel, we measured respondents’ environmental identity (EID), environmental concern (EC) and experiences of nature (EoN). We developed a pool of 26 EoN items and scaled them within six dimensions: observing/interacting, consumptive/appreciative, self-directed/other-directed, separate/integrated, solitary/shared and positive/negative (Clayton et al. 2017). We analysed EoN dimensionality via structural equation modelling and determined the best model to contain all except a consumptive/appreciative dimension. There were significant correlations between EoN and respondents’ EID and EC, yet correlations suggest EoN is a distinct construct from EID and EC.
This study combines social and environmental sciences to explore nature experiences and attitudes, illustrating a case of the potential that easy citizen-based transformations have on enhancing urban biodiversity and human-nature interactions.
References
Clayton et al. 2017. Transformation of experience: toward a new relationship with nature. Consev Lett 10(5): 645–651.
Soga & Gaston. 2016. Extinction of experience: the loss of human–nature interactions. Front Ecol Environ 14(2): 94–101.
Trémeau et al. 2024. Lawns and meadows in urban green space – a comparison from perspectives of greenhouse gases, drought resilience and plant functional types. Biogeosciences 21: 949–972.
How to cite: Olascoaga, B., Oldén, A., Karhu, K., Duplouy, A., Halme, P., Vainio, A., and Clayton, S.: Attitudes towards urban lawns and meadows and short-term environmental effects of transforming lawns into meadows in Helsinki metropolitan area, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15944, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15944, 2025.
The VNiC-Health project, funded by Research Ireland, uses a systems thinking approach to model the impact of urban greenspace changes on ecosystem services and public health. By integrating environmental and health data, this project provides urban planners with a powerful tool to explore how different land-use changes—such as tree growth, mowing reductions, or other land-use alterations—affect key ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, air quality, and flood risk management.
Central to the tool is the use of the national land cover map, which enables precise modeling of greenspace types and land uses across urban areas. This map forms the basis for understanding how changes in land management practices can influence the surrounding environment and health outcomes. The model allows users to visualise and simulate various scenarios, such as the effects of increasing tree cover or reducing mowing, and observe their impacts on the environment and public health in real time.
The project’s technical backbone is a systems dynamics model developed in Vensim, which incorporates data from literature and real-world inputs. To make the tool user-friendly and accessible, an interactive front-end interface was created, enabling stakeholders—ranging from urban planners to community members—to input their own data and test potential solutions. The tool’s visualisation capabilities help to translate complex systems dynamics into actionable insights.
Through participatory mapping and collaboration with local stakeholders, including residents and healthcare professionals, the project ensures that the model’s design reflects real-world needs and is accessible to a wide range of users. Ultimately, this approach offers a new way for urban planners to incorporate environmental changes and health data into the decision-making process, helping to create healthier, more sustainable cities.
How to cite: Clinton, M., Sinnott, F., Harper, A., Kaleta, B., Campbell, S., Burke, J., and O' Keeffe, J.: The Impact of Urban Greenspace Changes Using a Systems Thinking Approach and Interactive Tools, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6369, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6369, 2025.
The twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss represent intricate, multifaceted global challenges. Addressing these issues effectively necessitates interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-sectoral coordination. However, entrenched knowledge silos and fragmented policy frameworks often hinder the implementation of cohesive strategies. Considering the benefits provided by Natural Capital (NC) within decision-making provides an approach to quantify the value of ecosystem services and their contributions to human well-being, environmental health, and economic stability. Despite its potential, urban design and management frequently lack robust methodologies to assess these benefits.
This research introduces the VNiC-Health framework, a system dynamics model designed to embed Natural Capital within urban planning and policy. The model evaluates the contributions of blue-green spaces (BGS) to ecosystem services and human well-being through a novel metric informed by positive health psychology and biosensor data. Using an Irish urban case study, the model simulates alternative management scenarios to explore their long-term impacts, providing a roadmap to support strategic investment in BGS to mitigate urban challenges, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve public health outcomes, directly supporting global targets such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and the One Health approach.
This study highlights the critical need for integrated tools and approaches that transcend policy silos to address interconnected environmental and societal issues. By framing Natural Capital as a cornerstone of urban sustainability, the VNiC-Health model showcases its potential to advance holistic solutions that align with international climate and biodiversity objectives. It underscores the necessity of embracing innovative, evidence-based tools to drive global progress toward resilience and sustainability.
How to cite: Sinnott, F., O'Keeffe, J., Clinton, M., Burke, J., Campbell, S., Kaleta, B., and Harper, A.: Integrating Natural Capital into Urban Policy: A Systems Approach to Addressing Global Climate and Biodiversity Challenges, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9354, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9354, 2025.
Hydropower dams obstruct fish migration and typically require regulatory measures to mitigate or compensate for the losses in fish stock. These can be in the form of monetary payments or structural measure like fish passages. In Finland, these measures are provisioned in water permits which historically have been de-facto permanent as no practical legal instruments have existed to alter or review the permits. Changes in national legislation, however, have allowed the permit-issuing authority to review and alter the measures upon application. Altering the measures presents a conflict between two vital interests: the restoration of river courses and fish populations, and power production and energy security.
We explore this conflict by using a social network model to analyse the institutional setting of three regulatory processes aiming to alter water permits and the compensatory measures provisioned therein. This is approached through two research questions: what the legal framework is, and how is it utilized by relevant stakeholders. Our case is three major hydropower plants in Finland where the permit authority has reviewed the permits following legal argumentation from proponents of opposing interests. We first analyse and code the relevant legislation using Institutional Grammar (IG) Framework, which systematically represents and examines institutional and governance rules. Second, we transform the coded syntactic IG components into a social network consisting of nodes, edges, flows, and protocols. Finally, we use natural language processing (NLP) to parse the permit application documents, revealing how stakeholders —such as permit holders (power companies), fisheries authorities, and municipalities— utilize the network through legal argumentation.
The study increases the understanding of the ways the actors operating in the same governance context —in this case hydropower and its fisheries impacts— utilise the legal framework to promote their differing interests. Methodologically the study contributes to the fields of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Policy Analysis in several ways. First, it allows for the systematic analysis of extensive policy and legal documents with the help of NLP, thus significantly reducing manual labor. Second, its network conceptualization includes protocols and flows, which are often overlooked in SNA studies. Finally, it further bridges IG with SNA by linking more syntactic components of IG with network theory allowing analysis of both the existing institutional setting and its operationalization. The method demonstrates how computational methods can be used to analyse the dynamics of environmental conflict through social and legal perspective.
How to cite: Banafa, T. and Keskinen, M.: Social Networks of Institutions and Legal Processes: Case of Hydropower, Fish and Water Permits, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12693, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12693, 2025.
Colombia's forests, covering over half the country's land, are crucial ecosystems facing significant threats from multiple drivers, including infrastructure expansion, agricultural development, and illegal activities. This complex deforestation issue is deeply intertwined with Colombia's socio-political landscape, particularly influenced by its history of armed conflict and the recent peace agreement with FARC guerrillas in 2016. The complexity of the interconnected drivers makes developing effective forest protection strategies challenging, highlighting the intricate relationship between Colombia's political history, economic development, and environmental conservation. In this study, we conducted a systematic literature review examining the complex interplay between forest degradation, socio-political dynamics, and economic development in Colombia before and after the peace agreement. The review incorporated perspectives from environmental and social study disciplines, inspecting top-down and bottom-up scaling approaches to analyze the multifaceted scenarios that emerged during this period.
Our literature review on armed conflict and deforestation in Colombia reveals a growing interest from environmental and social sciences in understanding the impacts that the Colombian civil conflict and the 2016 peace agreement have had on the environment. Since the peace agreement, there has been a notable rise in research on this topic. We found that in environmental sciences, top-down analyses are more frequently employed, while in social sciences bottom-up methods are preferred. Interestingly, the number of interdisciplinary studies combining both methods is increasing. Multiple methodologies confirm that deforestation increased after the peace agreement, especially in the Andes and Amazon regions, but also in the Chocó and Llanos biogeographical regions. The power vacuum left by the guerrilla, not filled by governmental institutions, is widely acknowledged as a key source of important drivers of uncontrolled forest loss, such as land grabbing and illegal cattle ranching. External factors such as international demand for gold and illegal drugs continue to fuel deforestation and social conflict, with international aid programs to local farmers often proving ineffective. Although Colombia's situation may appear unique, the complex interplay of social, economic, political, and environmental factors offers valuable insights for understanding similar global dynamics in other conflict-prone regions.
How to cite: Muñoz, E., Botía, S., Salazar, A., Anaya, J. A., Clerici, N., Estupinan-Suarez, L. M., Lopera, I., Richter, S., Sierra, C. A., and Tangarife-Escobar, A.: After the Peace Agreement: a review of the interplay of conflict, socio-economic factors and deforestation in Colombia, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13162, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13162, 2025.
The Agricultural Production Potential in China and the basic geographical endowment patterns revealed by geographical boundaries such as the Hu Huanyong Line (Population boundary line in China), the Great Wall（Boundary line of agricultural and pastoral areas in China), and the Qinling-Huaihe line（North-South boundary line in China, and their relationship with food production and population distribution are worthy of exploration. Research findings indicate that there is a significant geographical differentiation in the agricultural production potential of China, with a general trend of higher potential in the southeast and lower potential in the northwest. The Heihe-Tengchong Line and Qinling-Huaihe Line serve as a dividing line for agricultural production potential in China, with a decreasing trend on the eastern side and a significant increasing trend on the western side. Specifically, the eastern region is characterized by "warming and drying" conditions, whereas the western region is marked by "warming and wetting," resulting in distinct differences in agricultural productivity between the two regions. from 1960s to 2010s, the proportion of total grain output, cultivated land area, and grain yield per hectare in the western region of the Hu Huanyong Line exhibited a significant upward trend nationwide. Simultaneously, the share of the total population in the eastern region decreased year by year, with rural population experiencing a rise followed by a decline. In contrast, the proportion of the population, particularly the rural population, in the western region steadily increased. These regional differences can be attributed to the combined effects of climate change, agricultural production potential. This study systematically analyzes the changes in agricultural production potential in eastern and western China and their relationship with grain output and population dynamics. It provides new insights into understanding regional agricultural development disparities and offers theoretical guidance for future agricultural policies and coordinated regional development.
How to cite: Xia, H. and Yin, J.: The Potential of Agricultural Production in China and Relationship with the Spatiotemporal Changes in Grain Production and Population, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15210, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15210, 2025.
Just Transition, as a critical concept balancing environmental sustainability and social equity, emphasizes achieving recognitional justice, procedural justice, and distributional justice during the low-carbon transition process. However, existing policies and research often overly focus on distributional justice, neglecting the identification of vulnerable groups and the assessment of their potential impacts. This study shifts the focus to recognitional justice, particularly on identifying potentially affected vulnerable groups and highlighting the impacts they may face, aiming to establish inclusive and equitable transition strategies.
This research integrates Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to examine greenhouse gas emission hotspots across the entire life cycle of crops, aiming to evaluate the challenges and impacts faced by stakeholders in the supply chain under net zero transition pathways. Based on a preliminary literature review, the study identifies the field sowing stage as the major greenhouse gas emission hotspot in the life cycle of crops. To address this issue, the research incorporates a review of Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices and employs quantitative methods to evaluate the environmental and social impacts of adopting CSA on stakeholders. Using the rice supply chain as a case study, the research not only identifies the environmental benefits of low GHG agricultural practices but also explores the distribution of impacts among vulnerable groups and their adaptive strategies.
This study contributes by establishing a framework integrating Just Transition with Life Cycle Assessment, providing theoretical support and empirical insights for policy design and practical operations in agricultural sustainability transitions.
How to cite: Lee, M. and Tung, C.: Establishing and Applying a Framework for Agricultural Just Transition: A Case Study of the Rice Production, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15468, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15468, 2025.
Since ancient time, locusts have been regarded as a devastating pest, posing serious threats to human societies and agricultural production. Numerous studies have shown that the drivers of locust infestation are closely related to climate and environmental conditions, but the mechanism has been under studied. The Chinese dynasties possess a rich and extensive quantity of historical documents, ranging from official historical books to local chronicles, particularly during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). These documents provide detailed accounts of various natural disasters, including locust infestations and their impacts on agrarian societies, as well as the social phenomena triggered by these events. The purpose of this study is to investigate the drivers of locust infestations by integrating perspectives from both climate and social systems, and to analyze the contributing factors and interactions influencing these infestations.
We collected locust data and climate indices from the REACHES database in the Qing dynasty (Wang et al., 2018), along with relevant social data such as population, governmental efficacy, crop harvest and conflict from the SIER (Societal Impact Events Records) database (White et al., 2024). To capture both frequency and severity of locust infestations, we constructed a locust infestation index and conducted sensitivity tests to ensure the stability of this index. Then we converted all data into 1° X 1° latitude/longitude resolution for conducting regression and correlation analyses, to identify the determinant factors in each cell and to categorize the spatial features. We aim to clarify the associations between locust infestations and their climatic and societal driving factors from the long-term data in the historical perspective.
How to cite: Wang, Z.-H., Lin, K.-H. E., Tseng, W.-L., Lin, C.-W., Huang, H.-C., and Wang, P. K.: A Climate and Social-Ecological Analysis of Locust Infestation Since the Mid-17th Century in the Chinese Dynasty, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11950, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11950, 2025.
Groundwater is a critical resource. Globally, 42% of irrigation, 36% of domestic, and 27% of industrial water needs are met by groundwater. However, over-extraction and unregulated use by anthropogenic activities and climate change have resulted in resource depletion, impacting 60% of livelihoods, 48% of food security, and 70% of environmental sustainability. According to GSDA, 2022, in semi-arid regions like Parbhani district, Maharashtra, India, groundwater scarcity is exacerbated by unplanned drilling and declining aquifer levels. The district's reliance on Deccan traps basaltic formations, a depth to the water level of more than 20 mbgl and an average rainfall of 656 mm reflect the gap and potential for effective groundwater recharge. Beyond resource management, this research addresses gender disparities tied to groundwater scarcity. In Parbhani, due to the migration of men in search of better livelihood opportunities, there is a 36 % increase in the feminization of agriculture which has placed women at the center of irrigation and agricultural activities, and groundwater depletion has heightened their drudgery. Women spend over two to four hours daily fetching water, limiting education, health, and economic empowerment opportunities. By improving groundwater availability, this study aims to alleviate women’s labor burdens, enhance their livelihoods, and promote gender equity.
This study integrated hydrogeological, geospatial, and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques to map groundwater recharge potential zones. Thematic layers such as geomorphology, geology, land use/land cover, drainage density, lineament density, soil, and slope were analyzed using a weighted overlay technique through social experts based on an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is further overlayed with an irrigation map of the district. The results identified high, moderate, and low recharge potential zones. The study has shown that slope (26.5%), geology (24.3%), and lineament density (15.5%) contributed the most significant weightage in determining recharge suitability. High recharge potential zones were primarily located in flatter terrains with favorable geomorphological and geological conditions, while low potential zones were associated with steeper slopes and poor lineament density. Based on the results, periodic derivation of existing water bodies and the promotion of efficient cropping patterns are recommended. The construction of water recharge structures through a public participatory approach and MGNREGA schemes including check dams, percolation tanks, and farm ponds are recommended to enhance water availability, livelihood, and gender equity for sustainable water resource management. This approach also demonstrates a replicable framework for addressing groundwater depletion challenges in similar semi-arid regions.
Keywords: Groundwater recharge zones, Public Participatory approach, livelihood, women
empowerment
How to cite: Yadav, M. and Chinnasamy, P.: Groundwater Recharge Management for Livelihood Enhancement andGender Equity in Semi-Arid Regions: A Hydrogeological and ParticipatoryApproach, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-9537, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-9537, 2025.
An advanced environmental information system is essential for the sustainable conservation and management of national land, leading to the increased utilization of the Environmental Conservation Value Assessment Map (ECVAM). However, following the scale enhancement to 1:5,000 in 2021, the Weakness evaluation item has included unsuitable data, resulting in an overestimation of grade 5 areas. This study aims to refine the Weakness evaluation item by revising the data used, focusing on the Chungcheongnam-do(CN) region. A revised model was developed by extracting only areas where Urban areas and Planned Management areas of Zoning District and Urbanized Areas of Land Cover(level 3) overlap, excluding previously included data such as farm roads, drainage ditches, and forest paths within Land Cover(level 3). As a result, the proportion of grade 5 areas decreased by 17.78 percentage points, while non-graded areas increased by 14.74 percentage points, indicating a more accurate reflection of the current conditions. Cross-comparison with other environmental and ecological indicators confirmed the relevance of the improved assessment. The revised model was found to maintain consistency within the ECVAM. This study enhances the accuracy and completeness of the Weakness evaluation item, supporting the utility of ECVAM and contributing to sustainable environmental land management.
How to cite: Ha, E., Jang, R.-I., Lee, S.-W., Yoon, J.-H., and Jeong, S.-W.: Improvement of Weakness Evaluation Item of Environmental Conservation Value Assessment Map (ECVAM) for the Integrated Management of Land and Environmental Planning, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19377, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19377, 2025.
Promoting biodiversity can be managed in two ways, i.e. by protecting species, and by improving the environment of the specific ecosystem, also called the boundary conditions for species. Species protection is an energetic approach for a sustainable transition of biotic energy in the food pyramid. The contribution of ecosystem protection to biodiversity is formulated in the energy-like niche approach of an ecological community of trophic similar species. Hubbel analysed in his monograph “The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography” the dispersion approach based on the migration and off spring of species within a specific ecosystem inspired by Fisher (1943) and the Island Biography of MacArthur and Wilson (1967). This is the entropy-like approach because the mean result of the species distribution is formalized by a lognormal distribution which implies the statistical Shannon entropy with the standard deviation as substantial parameter.
Why should we, humans, protect biodiversity? Is it purely for aesthetic arguments since all species – just like humans – have a role in the food pyramid? Is it because any non-human biological life is entitled with intrinsic or inherent moral values as claimed by a specific eco-philosophy school called Deep Ecology? Perhaps, there are more scientifically based arguments for good sustainable maintenance of our Earth?
The entropic approach and enlarged biodiversity is supported by Penrose´s claim that biologic life is lowering the entropy production rate of Earth. Out of the thermodynamic equilibrium, the Earth’s Helmholtz Free Energy is balancing around a minimum value enabling to produce an environment (boundary condition) for biotic life. Its entropy must be at minimum value given a constant mean temperature. As a consequence, minimum entropy implies maximum order so that any ecosystem tends to maximum biodiversity given the local boundary conditions for life. Can the entropy argument be considered as a pure eco-centric inspired ecological care in contrast to the energy/food argument which is definitely based on Enlightened anthropocentrism? We will elaborate about this during the presentation. To conclude, the minimal entropy production of the Planet can be considered as the reference physical standard to aim at for taking care of ecosystems and biodiversity.
How to cite: de Caluwe, J., Verstraeten, G. J. M., and Verstraeten, W. W.: Taking care of the Earth with an eco-centric approach based on minimal entropy production, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-3497, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-3497, 2025.
Gross ecosystem product (GEP) assessment can convert physical quantities of nature’s contribution into monetary units, so that measure regulating nature's contribution to people (NCP) with a unified standard to support decision-making. The nature's contributions and people's needs are often spatial mismatch, while most of assessments lacked the integration of NCP and GEP in a spatial flow view, which is not conducive to the cross-regional policy making of "who benefits, who pays". Taking six typical cities of the Loess Plateau as a case, we valued the GEP of four material NCPs and three regulating NCPs from 2000 to 2020. We established spatial flow allocation methods for water supply, soil retention, sandstorm prevention to decompose the GEP contributions of the three regulating NCPs to the neighboring and downstream cities, so as to combine the nature's contributions located in the middle reaches and the neighboring and downstream people's needs in the form of monetary value. The results show that the GEP of the six cities in the Loess Plateau grew from 20.22 billion Yuan in 2000 to 36.98 billion Yuan in 2020, with the material NCP growing from 10.54 billion Yuan to 26.95 billion Yuan, and the regulating NCP growing from 9.67 billion Yuan to 10.03 billion Yuan. In the extraterritorial flow of regulating NCPs, GEP for water supply NCP and soil retention NCP flowed to downstream of the Yellow River, GEP for sandstorm prevention NCP flowed to neighboring cities to the east and south of the study area. The flow of NCPs exhibited spatial heterogeneity, with the city benefiting from the greatest variety of NCP types differing from the city benefiting from the highest flow value of NCPs. The assessment demonstrates the feasibility of integrating the NCP and GEP indicator systems to spatially guide cross-regional payment for ecosystem services policy.
How to cite: Wang, S. and Liu, Y.: A monetary valuation of the spatial flow of nature’s contributions to people in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7967, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7967, 2025.
Natural gas (NG) infrastructure spans across the United States and its communities. An expansive system of transmission pipelines (midstream level infrastructure) connects development and extraction sites (upstream level infrastructure) with local distribution systems (downstream level infrastructure). NG releases occur across the upstream, midstream, and downstream levels of the supply chain as a combination of operational and fugitive emissions or leaks (i.e. intentional and unintentional releases, respectively). Given its Methane (CH4) composition, NG release across the supply chain poses a significant climate concern. This has prompted increasingly robust characterizations of intentional and unintentional releases across the NG supply chain. Meanwhile, there exists a growing appreciation for the localized environmental burdens associated with the location and management of NG infrastructure, and the ways in which these burdens are inequitably distributed across communities in the US.
Many states in the U.S. are beginning to impose data collection and reporting mandates on their NG companies, leaving research groups with rich data sets that can be used for Environmental Justice analyses to further characterize equity concerns as they exist across the U.S. NG system. Here, we present the results of our Environmental Justice focused analyses of leak report data provided to us by four local distribution companies. We discuss concerning patterns found in the data set, and we contextualize our approach and findings within a larger data driven framework that aims to create relationships that sustain data collection and reporting, and that centers the role of communities and environmental advocacy groups in the process of data collection and communication of results. In doing so, we hope to demonstrate an example of how a quantitative approach may be informed by and used to address issues of Social and Environmental Justice.
How to cite: Taylor, A. and von Fischer, J.: A quantitative approach towards recognizing and addressing Environmental Justice concerns in the U.S. Natural Gas System: Applied to data from local distribution companies, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13691, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13691, 2025.
Posters virtual: Thu, 1 May, 14:00–15:45 | vPoster spot 2
EGU25-8787 | ECS | Posters virtual | VPS29
Citizen Science in marine biodiversity unstructured monitoringThu, 01 May, 14:00–15:45 (CEST) | vP2.1
Citizen science in marine biodiversity monitoring encounters several challenges such as obtaining unstructured data which may lead to underestimate species presence or introduce spatial bias. In addition to those inherent to the marine environment. To address these challenges, efforts must be directed towards (1) enhancing participant engagement to increase the volume of data collected, and (2) developing methods to standardize the unstructured data obtained.
As of December 2024th, over 260.000 observations have been recorded during the course of four years by more than 870 volunteer participants documenting over 2900 species, including some historical observations, in the Coastal region of Catalonia, located in the northeast of Spain. These observations have been reported and validated in the citizen science observatory MINKA (minka-sdg.org).
This presentation will highlight the lessons learnt through the past four years, the opportunities and the remaining challenges to address.
How to cite: Companys, B., Alvarez, A., Salvador, X., Liñan, S., and Piera, J.: Citizen Science in marine biodiversity unstructured monitoring , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-8787, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-8787, 2025.
EGU25-11694 | ECS | Posters virtual | VPS29
Analysing the role of environmental communication with respect to CAQM policy on Delhi air qualityThu, 01 May, 14:00–15:45 (CEST) | vP2.2
Environmental communication is crucial in shaping the narrative around the aggravated issues like climate change, global warming, sea-level rise, air-pollution and pushing for impactful actions. With the burgeoning economy and rising population, the large democracy of India is facing a critical issue of air pollution in major cities, with Delhi consistently ranking first due to its persistently high air quality index (AQI) throughout the year. The Commission on Air Quality Management (CAQM) of India, a statutory government body, works diligently to improve the air quality of Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR). In July 2022, in accordance with the directives of the Honourable Supreme Court of India, CAQM launched the CAQM policy to find a permanent solution to air pollution, aiming to develop an inclusive policy addressing all sectors contributing to and affected by pollution. This study aims to explore the ways in which environmental challenges, such as air pollution, are conveyed to both citizens and policy makers through environmental communication. Upon analysing 277 news articles from eight leading news agencies, including four newspapers and four news channels, over a six-month period prior to the emergence of the CAQM policy in 2022, it was observed that news coverage is heavily concentrated during the post-monsoon season (with 68% of the analysed news articles concentrated in October and November). This period in North India is prominently under focus due to 'stubble burning' activities mainly occurring in the states of Punjab and Haryana. Hence, a strong connection between the news articles and active number of fire locations has also been found. However, it was found that news articles do not proportionately reflect fluctuations in the Air Quality Index (AQI), for example, no news articles were noted on December 23rd and 24th 2022, despite AQI values reaching 524 and 522 respectively. Similarly, from January to March 2022, news coverage was minimal despite high AQI levels, indicating that coverage is more linked to periods of higher fire activity in Punjab and Haryana, rather than AQI levels in Delhi. We also attempted to find a possible connection between the issues raised in the news media during the period of our interest and the CAQM policy that was formed in April 2022. It is noticed that, while the CAQM policy aimed to improve air quality and, consequently, public health, media coverage paid relatively less attention to the health implications (barely 56 articles mentioning health or mortality). The recommendations for a new policy did rise but again from November 10th to December 5th, with 96 articles published during this period, suggesting a period-specific coverage. This indicates that media reporting focuses heavily on stubble burning, whereas the CAQM policy treats it as just another pollution source, without special emphasis. Hence, for our case study, it is noted that the media's coverage of environmental communication seems to be less comprehensive and lacks depth compared to the detailed measures outlined in CAQM policy addressing air pollution.
How to cite: Pandit, S., Govardhan, G., and Ghude, S.: Analysing the role of environmental communication with respect to CAQM policy on Delhi air quality, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11694, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11694, 2025.
EGU25-11581 | ECS | Posters virtual | VPS29
Mapping Tea Plantations in Africa with Computer VisionThu, 01 May, 14:00–15:45 (CEST) | vP2.3
Tea, Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze is a globally significant crop, with approximately 6.6 billion cups consumed daily, making it the second most consumed beverage after water. It supports millions of livelihoods and contributes significantly to regional economies, particularly in Africa. Despite its importance, monitoring tea plantations in the continent remains manual as there are no spatially-explicit maps, thereby hindering efficient quantification of forest and biodiversity changes associated with tea cultivation, for instance. Here, we present the first high-resolution map of tea plantations in Africa, developed using computer vision techniques integrated with high-resolution satellite imagery and ground-truth polygons. Our approach achieves unprecedented spatial accuracy in delineating the area under tea cultivation with an overall accuracy of 97%. This milestone lays a foundation for spatially-explicit monitoring of tea plantations, enabling applications such as yield estimation, pest and disease detection, protected area encroachment analysis, carbon stock assessments, biodiversity impacts investigations, and evaluation of climate-driven range shifts, among others.
How to cite: Oluoch, W. A., Drees, L., Wegner, J. D., and Wuepper, D.: Mapping Tea Plantations in Africa with Computer Vision, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-11581, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-11581, 2025.
