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

The purpose of this session is to present recent advances in the analysis of environmental contamination using Applied Geophysics, Remote Sensing and Artificial Intelligence approaches.
Characterizing and understanding the surface and subsurface is a challenge for many scientific areas.
The risk assessment of a contaminated site, using traditional procedures, implies soil and water sampling to proceed to chemical analysis to quantify potentially toxic metals. This is very expensive and time-consuming task.
Remote sensing methods can be applied as preceding steps of the traditional approaches to define places to create classification maps, to know where the most contaminated sites are.
Applied Geophysics investigates underground using a variety of non-invasive and non-destructive techniques such as ground-penetrating radar, magnetics, electrical resistivity tomography, electromagnetic induction, and seismics. Remote Sensing uses methods such as photogrammetry, LIDAR, GNSS, and satellite hyperspectral data to determine physical properties at a distance. Some Remote Sensing technologies can also give information from the subsurface or the interior of structures. Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to manage information using as inputs data provided by different methods that can help in the calculation of contamination maps.
Knowledge in these fields can be applied to a variety of research topics, combining all-together results of several fields like the mentioned above, using Artificial Intelligence. This can enable the development of integrated tools for optimized environmental management, enabling the automated identification of risk areas and promoting the reduction of sampling and operational costs, as well as reducing assessment times in the management of contaminated areas.
This approach has great potential to be replicated in other environmental contamination problems, such as those produced by industrial waste, landfills, as well as intensive agriculture.
This session will collect the contributions from Applied Geophysics, Remote Sensing and Artificial Intelligence in the following topics:
- Environmental studies: characterization of the soil and water contamination by potentially toxic metals in mining places, industrial waste, landfills and intensive agriculture.
- Innovations in data acquisition, processing approaches, and big data management of Geophysical, Remote Sensing and AI methods.

A wide range of geo-electromagnetic methods, including natural source magnetotelluric, time-domain, and frequency-domain controlled source EM, as well as DC resistivity and induced polarization are uniquely sensitive to the earth’s electrical properties and are capable of probing from shallow depths near the surface to even hundreds of kilometers into the Earth's crust. They are invaluable for revealing subsurface structures, fluid distributions, mineral resources, tectonic features, and even engineered infrastructure. Traditionally essential in resource exploration, geo-electromagnetic methods are now becoming increasingly relevant in addressing new global challenges related to energy systems, the impacts of climate change, environmental problems, and urban development and resilience.

This session serves as an annual platform for showcasing the latest advancements in geo-electromagnetic research. We encourage contributions from a broad range of topics, including methodological breakthroughs, novel field observations, theoretical advancements, and case studies. This year, we particularly welcome submissions that highlight innovative uses of geo-electromagnetic methods in emerging areas—whether through state-of-the-art instrumentation, unconventional applications, or studies with significant societal or environmental relevance.

Energy system modelling and integrated assessment approaches are essential tools for understanding and optimising the complex interactions within modern energy systems. By simulating these interactions, stakeholders can make informed decisions that improve energy security, support economic viability, social prosperity, and minimise environmental impact.

This session will explore the role of energy system modelling and integrated assessment in advancing sustainable energy transitions, with a particular focus on the impacts of system retrofitting and integrating renewable sources such as solar, hydrogen, wind, hydroelectric power, and geothermal energy.

We will examine renewable energy, small-scale RETs, and hydrogen's growing importance in achieving net-zero emissions, exploring its potential in energy storage, transportation, and industrial applications, and advanced grid management systems. In addition, the session will address the social and environmental effects, trade-offs, and co-benefits of renewable energy systems, particularly their impact on communities, job creation, land use and related ecological consequences.

Thereby, looking at strategies for sustainable planning and management that enhance the environmental and social co-benefits of the renewable energy transition, such as improving community resilience and job creation, as well as ecosystem service enhancement and the mitigation of land use conflicts.

This session aims to bring together researchers from diverse fields to discuss how these models and tools can improve decision-making, enable informed policy development, promote interdisciplinary collaboration, and advance broader sustainability goals.

The European Green Deal sets an ambitious vision for a climate-neutral Europe by 2050, requiring a fundamental transformation of energy systems and the phasing out of fossil fuels. As part of this transition, coal-dependent regions face profound industrial, economic, and social challenges. This session focuses on the scientific, technological, and socio-economic research needed to support the just transition of coal and lignite regions, ensuring environmental restoration, economic revitalization, and social equity.

Relevant topics include but are not limited to:
• Adaptive reuse of coal mines and related infrastructure (e.g., power plants, shafts, rail networks) for energy storage, district heating, or industrial parks.
• Environmental restoration of post-mining landscapes, including water table protection, mine drainage treatment, and biodiversity recovery.
• Ground stability monitoring and subsidence risk management in former mining areas.
• Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane, from abandoned and closing coal mines.
• Innovative development of advanced materials from mining waste and tailings, emphasizing their applications in construction, energy storage, and environmental remediation.
• Valorization of mining waste, fly ash, and desulphurization residues for non-energetic uses and raw material recovery, with minimized environmental and health impacts.
• Development and testing of carbon dioxide capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies in former coal regions.
• Exploration and implementation of geothermal energy systems on repurposed coal mine sites.
• Health-focused research on mining-related diseases and protective measures during mine closure and post-operational phases.
• Strategies for reskilling and upskilling coal workers, including research on effective training programs and labor market integration into emerging green sectors.

Mining is essential for providing the raw materials needed for infrastructure, industrial development, renewable energy technologies, and the global shift to a low carbon economy. However, the environmental impacts of mining often remain long after mines are closed, making post mining pollution one of the biggest sustainable development challenges worldwide. Abandoned and inactive mines can still release harmful pollutants through acid mine drainage, tailings leaks, waste rock weathering, and the spread of contaminated dust, causing long term damage to land and aquatic ecosystems. Addressing these persistent environmental issues requires integrated scientific, technological, economic, and policy driven solutions.
One of the main focuses of this session is the various global challenges caused by post-mining Issues. Mine safety is still a key issue, since unstable tailings, abandoned underground mines, waste piles, ground subsidence, slope failures, and other geological hazards can all pose threats to workers and nearby communities. Environmental challenges include acid mine drainage, heavy metal pollution, persistent organic pollutants, airborne particulate matter, contamination of groundwater and surface water, soil degradation, and the movement of pollutants through different parts of the environment. We strongly encourage research on pollution sources, migration mechanisms, environmental fate, monitoring technologies, and risk assessments.
Besides the challenges, this session also highlights opportunities to develop innovative technologies and sustainable management strategies to turn post mining land into highly productive and resilient environments.
This session is aimed at giving researchers, engineers, environmental scientists, public health experts, economists, policymakers, and industry folks a cross-disciplinary platform to share knowledge and showcase innovative research on post-mining challenges and opportunities. We welcome contributions from all areas of mining, including coal, metal, rare earth elements, industrial minerals, and abandoned mine sites.

Running Earth system models, downscaling outputs and driving process-based impact models are computationally expensive tasks that hinder the exploration of climate change impacts. New generations of statistical, physical, and hybrid climate change emulators reduce these bottlenecks by mimicking global, regional and extreme-event responses to generate projections of climate change and its associated impacts more efficiently. This capability transforms the assessment of climate change impacts and risks by enabling rapid policy-relevant analyses for sectors such as natural systems, agriculture, water resources, economics, energy systems and human health.

This session invites contributions on the developments and applications in climate change emulation, highlighting opportunities and challenges for robust and computationally efficient climate risk assessments. This includes simple climate models, probabilistic emulation techniques and machine learning approaches, including traditional pattern scaling, as well as benchmarking efforts that aid in interpretability and consistency between emulation methods. To foster interdisciplinary exchange, we also encourage submissions regarding approaches for climate impact projections.

Hydropower is a mature and cost-competitive renewable energy source, which helps stabilize fluctuations between energy demand and supply. The structural and operational differences between hydropower systems and renewable energy farms may require changes in the way hydropower facilities operate to provide balancing, reserves or energy storage. Yet, non-power constraints on hydropower systems, such as water supply, flood control, conservation, recreation, navigation may affect the ability of hydropower to adjust and support the integration of renewables. Holistic approaches that may span a range of spatial and temporal scales are needed to evaluate hydropower opportunities and support a successful integration maintaining a resilient and reliable power grid. In particular, there is a need to better understand and predict spatio-temporal dynamics between climate, hydrology, and power systems.

This session solicits academics and practitioners contributions that explore the use of hydropower and storage technologies to support the transition to low-carbon electricity systems. We specifically encourage interdisciplinary teams of hydrologists, meteorologists, ecologist, power system engineers, and economists to present on case studies and discuss collaboration with environmental and energy policymakers.

Questions of interest include:

- Prediction of water availability and storage capabilities for hydropower production

- Prediction and quantification of the space-time dependences and the positive/negative feedbacks between wind/solar energies, water cycle and hydropower

- Energy, land use and water supply interactions during transitions

- Policy requirements or climate strategies needed to manage and mitigate risks in the transition

- Energy production impacts on ecosystems such as hydropeaking effects on natural flow regimes.

This session has the support of the a) Cost Action : Pan-European Network for Sustainable Hydropower (PEN@Hydropower), and b) European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), that established the joint program “Hydropower” to facilitate research, promote hydropower and enable sustainable electricity production. Further information can be found here:
https://www.pen-hydropower.eu/
https://www.eera-set.eu/eera-joint-programmes-jps/list-of-jps/hydropower/

The expansion of offshore wind farms is altering shelf-sea hydrodynamics, stratification, biogeochemistry, and coastal communities. The methods and findings remain fragmented. This session seeks contributions employing qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate these impacts, connecting them to carbon cycling, energy systems, and transboundary marine spatial planning implications.

High-temperature industrial and applied processes rely on materials and systems that can withstand extreme thermal, mechanical, and chemical conditions. As such, refractory materials are central to a wide range of high-temperature industrial and applied processes, including metallurgy, glass production, ceramics, cement, waste-to-energy systems and related thermal technologies. Their performance is governed by complex interactions between raw-materials, phase evolution, microstructure, thermal and mechanical loading, and chemical attack by slags, melts, dusts, and reactive gases. Understanding these processes is essential for improving material durability, process efficiency, and sustainability in extreme environments.
This session welcomes contributions on refractory materials and high-temperature mineralogical processes across industrial and applied systems. Topics may include raw materials, metallurgy, synthesis and processing, phase stability, melt-solid-gas interactions, corrosion and degradation mechanisms, thermal shock and creep behaviour, and lifetime prediction. In addition, we encourage studies that link refractory behaviour to metallurgical practice and plant performance, alongside characterization, modelling, work on circular approaches, such as recycling, the use of secondary raw materials, and strategies to reduce the environmental footprint of high-temperature industries.
Our session aims to connect fundamental research, advanced characterization, modelling, and industrial case studies. Contributions from universities, research facilities, and industry are equally welcome, with the goal of fostering exchange across the full chain from materials design and processing to service performance and end-of-life management.

The global energy transition is driving unprecedented demand for critical and strategic raw materials such as copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements. In Europe, the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) sets ambitious targets for domestic extraction and processing, and requires Member States to establish national exploration programmes, including geoscientific surveys, mineral mapping and geochemical campaigns. These programmes are generating a new wave of regional and national-scale geophysical datasets and renewing interest in the reinterpretation of legacy data. With most near-surface deposits in well-explored terranes already discovered, future discoveries will increasingly depend on our ability to image deeper, covered and geologically complex targets.
This session invites contributions on all aspects of geophysics applied to mineral exploration, from national to deposit scale. We welcome studies using potential field (gravity, magnetics), electromagnetic, magnetotelluric, induced polarisation, seismic, radiometric and borehole methods, as well as airborne, drone-based and passive-source approaches.
Contributions presenting results, strategies and lessons learned from national exploration programmes, as well as work on low-impact exploration, social acceptance, and secondary resources such as mine waste and tailings, are also welcome. The session aims to bring together academia, geological surveys and industry to discuss how geophysics can support a secure and sustainable supply of raw materials in Europe and worldwide.

This session aims to provide a comprehensive platform for discussing the latest advancements in lunar science, exploration, and resource utilization.
This session will cover critical aspects of lunar science, including investigations of the deep interior, subsurface structure, surface morphology, up to atmospheric dynamics and the solar wind interaction. Such studies can make use of lunar mission data, lunar samples, meteorites, terrestrial analogues, laboratory experiments, and / or modeling efforts. Comparative investigations linking the Moon with asteroids or planet Mercury are equally encouraged.
In addition to highlighting results from past and current space missions, this session seeks to explore innovative ideas for future exploration, including insights on forthcoming space missions and instrumentation aiming to greatly advance our understanding of the Moon in the next decades. Furthermore, the session will focus on identifying strategic knowledge gaps crucial for the safe and sustainable exploration of cis-lunar space and the lunar surface by astronauts. Finally, the session will discuss the role of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), which has recently been proposed as the key enabler of a sustained human presence on the Moon.
We welcome all relevant contributions — spanning theoretical models, observational data, and experimental findings — from experts of different fields including science and engineering. As such, the session aims to foster a comprehensive dialogue on ongoing developments and plans of lunar exploration activities.

Global demand for critical metals is rising sharply, driven by the energy transition, electrification, and geopolitical pressure on supply chains, while historically high gold prices have made lower-grade and more geologically challenging precious-metal resources economically attractive to mine. Deformation plays a central role in this challenge: it can remobilise, concentrate, or trap metals at scales ranging from crystal defects to orogen-scale structures, controlling where these resources ultimately reside. This session explores how structural processes, from dislocation-scale metal siting in ore minerals to dilational sites hosting mineralised veins and intrusions, govern the distribution of precious and critical metals, and what this means for meeting future supply needs. We welcome contributions examining ore-forming processes genetically linked to deformation, resolving micro- to nano-scale controls on metal distribution and mobilisation, or establishing how crustal deformation governs ore distribution and what that implies for designing effective exploration strategies.

The secure and sustainable supply of raw materials is fundamental to the energy and digital transitions, while increasing demand for critical and strategic raw materials creates new environmental, technological, economic and societal challenges. Addressing these challenges requires integrated approaches covering the entire mineral-resource life cycle, from exploration and resource evaluation to extraction, processing, responsible consumption, circularity, mine closure and post-mining land use.

This session invites contributions presenting innovative approaches for responsible consumption and production in the raw materials and mining sector, with particular emphasis on methods and technologies that improve resource efficiency, reduce environmental impacts and uncertainties, and support resilient and responsible mineral value chains.

We particularly welcome contributions addressing:

Sustainable exploration, resource evaluation and uncertainty-aware mineral-resource modelling;
Responsible surface and underground extraction and mine planning;
Critical and strategic raw materials from primary and secondary resources;
Critical and strategic raw materials from primary and secondary sources, including recovery and valorisation from urban wastes, mine wastes, tailings and slags;
Digital mining, remote sensing, GIS, geostatistics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, robotics and digital twins;
Environmental impacts of extraction and processing (water, energy, emissions, waste, ecosystems) and their assessment through life-cycle and sustainability-performance approaches;
Responsible sourcing, traceability, supply-chain resilience and raw-material criticality;
Mine-waste management, rehabilitation, mine closure, post-mining monitoring and sustainable post-mining land uses;
Risk, uncertainty and safety assessment throughout the mining life cycle;
Innovative governance, ESG, regulatory and decision-support approaches for sustainable raw-material development.

The session seeks to bring together researchers, practitioners, industry representatives and early-career scientists working across related topics.

We especially encourage interdisciplinary contributions that demonstrate how geoscientific knowledge, advanced technologies and circular-economy principles can be integrated to reconcile raw-material security with environmental protection and responsible production and consumption.

As the global energy transition accelerates, there is an increasing need to understand the lithosphere not only for critical minerals, but also for emerging resources such as natural hydrogen and geothermal energy. This session aims to bring together geoscientists—particularly geophysicists working across diverse methodologies—to foster interdisciplinary discussion and advance our understanding of how lithospheric architecture controls the formation, distribution, and preservation of these resource systems.



We invite contributions focused on imaging and characterising the continental lithosphere at scales ranging from regional to local, using geophysical array and profile data. Studies that integrate multiple datasets—such as electromagnetic surveys, magnetotellurics, seismic tomography and reflection, distributed acoustic sensing, gravity, magnetics, geoid, and heat flow—are particularly encouraged. We also welcome research that combines geophysical data with geological, geochemical, mineralogical, and petrophysical approaches to provide a holistic understanding of lithospheric processes.



This session will highlight advances that inform the discovery and sustainable development of critical minerals, natural hydrogen, and geothermal resources, ultimately contributing to a secure and low-carbon energy future.

Raw materials extraction has significant environmental and social impacts on local ecosystems and communities worldwide. As mining intensifies to support the energy transition, digital transformation, and the defence sector, multiple scientific communities are now closely monitoring these impacts not only at a site scale but globally. The need to understand local changes caused by mining has led researchers to increasingly focus on spatially explicit methods and approaches to map and assess these impacts at larger scales, e.g. national, regional, and global. The scalability of methods to monitor mining impacts is critical because minerals supply chains are highly complex, i.e. a single final consumption product can be linked to extraction sites distributed around the world, within regions with their specific characteristics (ecosystem types and services, community subsistence practices, local regulations, etc). Disentangling these spatial heterogeneities would provide the basis to improve assessments of impacts and risks of global supply chains and integrate spatially explicit datasets that would better represent the true impact of individual raw materials at their extraction sites and surroundings. This session invites contributions that move towards large-scale monitoring of the multiple impacts and operational aspects of mining at national and global levels, with a particular focus to the following topics:
This session invites contributions on large-scale monitoring of mining impacts and operations, focusing on
Land-use changes, degradation, and rehabilitation;
Biodiversity (loss and ecosystem service disruptions);
Social impacts;
Water resources (quantity, quality, scarcity, and downstream agricultural effects);
Carbon footprint assessments, leveraging large-scale spatial data from the sector;
Monitoring of mining waste and tailings, including tracking the evolution of waste volumes;
Remote sensing techniques to map mining activities and their impacts that demonstrate scalability;
Assessment of impacts from raw material extraction embodied in trade and final consumption of goods and services;
Self-reported data (corporate ESG reports);
Regional or global databases documenting mining activities;
Data collection methodologies (AI, ML, web scraping, crowdsourcing, etc).
Note: Site-specific case studies are out of scope. This session focuses exclusively on scalable, spatially explicit monitoring options for regional or global assessments.

Natural hydrogen generated mainly by water–rock interactions, particularly oxydo-reduction of Fe-bearing rocks, is increasingly investigated as both a fundamental geological process and a potential subsurface resource. While geological H₂ generation has been observed, major uncertainties remain regarding production rates, pathways, geochemical and biological sinks, and accumulation in the subsurface.
Addressing these questions requires moving towards an integrated understanding of the natural hydrogen system, from source to accumulation. Bridging fundamental research and exploration is essential: process-based knowledge provides the framework for interpreting subsurface observations, while exploration datasets offer unique opportunities to test hypotheses at the scale of natural systems.
This session invites multidisciplinary contributions addressing the different components of natural hydrogen systems: water sources, circulation and access to reactive rocks; geometry and dynamics of ultramafic source regions; serpentinization mechanisms, reaction kinetics and H₂ generation; structural controls and migration pathways; geochemical and biological sinks; gas–water–rock interactions and gas mixtures; reservoir properties, trapping and sealing mechanisms; and H₂ accumulation and preservation.
We particularly welcome studies integrating geology, structural geology, petrology, geochemistry, microbiology, laboratory experiments, numerical and reactive-transport modelling, and geophysical imaging, including seismic, electromagnetic, gravity, magnetic and multiphysics approaches.
A central objective is to connect processes with observable signatures: What transforms an H₂-generating geological environment into a functioning natural hydrogen system? Which observations can constrain its source, activity, migration pathways and potential accumulation? By connecting fundamental understanding with subsurface observations, this session aims to advance both the science and exploration of natural hydrogen.

Mining moves more material each year than all natural terrestrial processes combined, while crushing and refining the extracted ores consumes some 2% of global energy production. The energy transition sharpens this paradox, as replacing fossil infrastructure with renewables demands a many-fold increase in the supply of copper, lithium, rare earth elements and other critical raw materials, which secondary supply cannot deliver on the timescales involved. Europe, notably, has one of the world's longest mining histories, yet limited investment and low public acceptance due to environmental and social costs have left the geology of many districts unexplored by modern methods. This session convenes the technical and conceptual advances needed to explore differently in Europe and worldwide.

We thus invite contributions on non-invasive, low-impact exploration for societally acceptable resource sources: novel geophysical acquisition and inversion, including passive, airborne and drone-borne methods; remote sensing from satellite through UAV to drill-core scales, including hyperspectral imaging and rapid geochemical characterisation; and mineral-systems or knowledge-driven frameworks that turn sparse observations into testable targets.

Innovative approaches to holistic data integration and prospectivity mapping are equally relevant, as a fusion of diverse legacy and new data is needed to generate predictive targets. We especially encourage submissions that take this interdisciplinary approach even further: to integrate societal and environmental licence to operate into target prioritisation, monitoring tools that ensure accountability across the exploration and mining lifecycle, and work identifying overlooked primary and secondary resources in legacy mining areas.

Deep-seated and concealed mineral deposits represent a major opportunity for securing the sustainable supply of critical raw materials required for Europe’s energy, digital and industrial transitions. However, exploring mineral resources at greater depths and beneath geological cover remains technically challenging, costly, and uncertain. Reducing these uncertainties requires a new generation of exploration approaches capable of integrating geological knowledge with advanced sensing, geophysical imaging, geochemistry, Earth observation, automated data processing, and predictive modelling.

This session invites contributions presenting innovative technologies, methodologies and integrated workflows for the exploration of mineral resources, from early-stage geological targeting to field validation and demonstration. Particular attention will be given to approaches that combine complementary datasets and technologies across different spatial scales and improve our ability to identify indirect geological, geochemical, geophysical and spectral expressions of mineralisation at depth.

We particularly encourage contributions linked to recent advances in remote and proximal sensing, passive and active geophysics, UAV-based measurements, hyperspectral imaging, robotics, artificial intelligence and multi-source data integration are creating new possibilities for detecting, characterising and assessing deep mineral systems. These technologies can improve exploration targeting while reducing drilling requirements, operational costs, environmental disturbance and the time needed to move from regional-scale prospectivity assessment to deposit-scale investigation.

This session is promoted by DEXPLORE project entitled Recognising European potential for hosting deep land primary CRM by combining new mineral models and advanced exploration and visualisation techniques (Grant Agreement: 101178897), funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are, however, those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The transition towards sustainable and resilient raw materials supply requires improved monitoring and characterisation across the entire mining lifecycle, from exploration to closure and post-mining management. Earth Observation (EO), combined with in-situ measurements, geospatial technologies and advanced data analytics, is opening new possibilities for the continuous characterization and monitoring of areas of raw material potential, as well as active, inactive, abandoned and legacy mining sites, This includes the exploration of prospective areas, open pits, underground mining areas, waste rock dumps, tailings storage facilities and surrounding environments, supporting a comprehensive understanding of mining activities and their environmental impacts throughout the full mining cycle
This session brings together innovative EO products, sensor technologies, and modelling approaches for developing integrated monitoring frameworks that transform heterogeneous multi-source observations into actionable knowledge across the full raw materials and mining lifecycle. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary contributions addressing the characterization, monitoring, management, and risk assessment of prospective areas, mine waste sites, including tailings facilities and waste-rock deposits
The session welcomes contributions on
• Earth observation, geospatial approaches and sensor technologies across the full mining life cycle
• Ground deformation, dynamic hazard and geotechnical and risk monitoring and assessment of mining sites, tailings facilities, waste-rock deposits, and other mining-related infrastructure
• Environmental and sustainability monitoring, including land-use change, water, vegetation, contamination, and ecosystem impacts associated with mining and mine waste
• Multi-scale and multi-source data integration, combining satellite, airborne, UAV, and ground-based observations with geological, geochemical, geotechnical, and historical data for exploration, mine monitoring and post-mining assessment
• AI, ML, data fusion, and predictive modelling for automated, continuous, and near-real-time monitoring and assessment
• Data scalability, interoperability, and practical uptake of monitoring approaches, including their transferability across sites and regions and implementation by industry, authorities, and environmental managers

The increasing use of the subsurface for energy production, storage, and waste disposal requires a better understanding of how geological systems respond to human activities. Changes in subsurface conditions trigger interactions between thermal, hydraulic, mechanical, chemical, and biological (THMCB) processes, which influence fluid and heat transport, rock properties, and the long-term evolution of engineered subsurface systems. Understanding these interactions is essential for predicting system performance and ensuring safe and sustainable operation.

Although subsurface technologies differ in their objectives and operational conditions, they share many underlying processes and challenges. Research on geothermal energy, underground energy storage, geological CO₂ storage, and radioactive waste disposal can therefore benefit from a common understanding of coupled processes and the exchange of knowledge between research communities.

This session welcomes contributions investigating individual and coupled THMCB processes in porous and fractured geological media. We encourage experimental, observational, and modelling studies that improve our understanding of how these processes interact and affect subsurface behavior. We encourage contributions that explore feedback between processes, bridge spatial and temporal scales, and improve our ability to predict subsurface responses under changing conditions.

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 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, the Middle East, etc.

By combining long monitoring data (> halftime of Cesium 137 after the Chornobyl Accident in 1986, 16 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. Furthermore, the discharge of ALPS-treated water into the ocean, carried out as part of the decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, has attracted international attention and demonstrated that decommissioning a nuclear power plant that has suffered an accident requires a fundamentally different approach from that of a conventional decommissioning. Studies on past nuclear contamination events and other environmental radioactivity datasets are also welcome.

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).

Faults and fractures are fundamental structural features of reservoirs and sealing units, with hydraulic and mechanical properties that differ markedly from the surrounding rock. Their behaviour governs fluid flow, containment, and fluid-rock interaction, central to the safety and performance of geoenergy applications such as CO₂ and hydrogen storage, nuclear waste disposal, and geothermal energy production.

Recent advancements in laboratory experimental capabilities, field observation techniques, monitoring technologies, and numerical modelling methods have deepened our understanding of fault/fracture deformation, failure, and (re-)activation. These discontinuities act as conduits or barriers for fluid and heat flow, enhancing or impairing reservoir performance. Of particular concern are changes in thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) coupling associated with injection, fluid circulation, and extraction near faulted and fractured zones, which can alter transmissibility and structural stability.

Understanding these dynamics is crucial for predicting and mitigating risks associated with induced seismicity, leakage, and other subsurface hazards. These insights also improve the accuracy of numerical models used to predict fault behaviour at reservoir scales and guide the design and management of geoenergy projects.

We invite contributions from researchers exploring the role of faults and fractures in subsurface systems, particularly those involved in applied or interdisciplinary studies related to low-carbon technologies such as CO₂ and hydrogen storage, nuclear waste disposal, and geothermal energy production. We are particularly interested in research bridging the gap between laboratory-scale measurements and reservoir-scale processes, employing methods including but not limited to laboratory investigations, outcrop studies, in-situ experiments, monitoring, subsurface data analysis, and numerical modelling and simulation. Interdisciplinary approaches integrating geological, geophysical, and engineering perspectives are especially welcome.

The session aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of faults and fractures on subsurface energy systems, showcasing innovative methods for their characterisation, monitoring, and modelling.

Scientific machine learning (SciML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly used to interpret heterogeneous subsurface data, accelerate multiphysics simulation, infer uncertain parameters, and support decisions in geotechnical, environmental, and geoenergy applications. Their practical value, however, depends on physical consistency, generalisation beyond training conditions, uncertainty characterisation, and validation against independent evidence.
This session invites contributions on recent methodological advances and innovative applications of data-driven, physics-informed, and hybrid physics-AI techniques for geotechnical, geothermal, and subsurface systems. Relevant applications include, but not limited to, site and subsurface characterisation; geothermal exploration, reservoir development, monitoring, and operation; groundwater flow, transport in porous media, multicomponent reactive transport, and geochemical processes; coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical processes; underground storage of heat, hydrogen, or carbon dioxide; and geotechnical infrastructure.
We welcome work on supervised and unsupervised learning, deep learning, physics-informed neural networks, neural operators, surrogate and reduced-order models, inverse modelling, data assimilation, Bayesian inference, digital twins, and other relevant studies. Contributions addressing heterogeneous or sparse data, multiscale modelling, uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, model discrepancy, transferability, interpretability, and computational efficiency are particularly encouraged.
A central objective is to connect methodological development with physical and observational evidence. We therefore welcome studies integrating laboratory experiments, imaging and sensing methods, field monitoring, operational data, and numerical simulations for training, calibration, verification, and validation. Comparative studies that establish when machine learning or physics-informed methods improve upon conventional numerical, statistical, or inverse approaches and where they do not are especially valuable.

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.

The current energy, climate, and geopolitical crises underscore the urgent need to develop carbon-free natural resources, with natural hydrogen as one of the most promising candidates. However, fundamental knowledge gaps persist regarding the complex, interconnected geological, geochemical, and microbiological processes that govern its generation, migration, accumulation, preservation, and seepage. This session aims to improve our understanding of the natural hydrogen cycle through the integrated interpretation of multi-scale (from laboratory to field scale) and multi-disciplinary observations. Contributions should present novel or established methods to: 1) reliably distinguish geological from non-geological (microbial and artificial) hydrogen sources; 2) link surface geochemical, microbiological and/or geophysical signatures to subsurface processes and migration pathways; 3) quantify the hydrogen generation and consumption/degradation rates to assess its potential as a sustainable energy resource; and 4) Improve current models of the natural hydrogen cycle. We invite contributions from researchers applying surface geochemical, microbiological, subsurface geophysical exploration techniques, as well as integrated multi-disciplinary approaches including modelling to reduce ambiguities in data interpretation and improve predictive capabilities for natural hydrogen systems.

Geological media are a strategic resource for the forthcoming energy transition and their use for low-carbon geo-energy technologies is increasing to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Subsurface engineering applications such as deep geothermal resource exploitation, carbon capture and sequestration, or gas storage involve multi-physical processes in the porous and fractured rock. These processes include fluid flow, solute and heat transport, rock deformation and geochemical (including microbial) reactions, which occur simultaneously and impact each other. The safe and efficient deployment of such geo-energy technologies is bounded to the adequate understanding of these coupled 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 like ground deformation) and the mathematical models describing the evolution of the multi-physical systems.
This session is dedicated to studies investigating some of these THMC interactions by means of mathematical, experimental, numerical, data-driven and artificial intelligence methods, as well as studies focused on laboratory characterization and 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, geothermal systems, gas storage, energy storage, mining, reservoir management, reservoir stimulation, fluid injection-induced seismicity and radioactive waste storage.

Chemical reactions between fluids and minerals continuously reshape porous and fractured rocks. Dissolution, precipitation, cementation, and mineral replacement alter pore geometry and connectivity, changing the pathways through which fluids and solutes reach reactive sites. The resulting feedbacks between reaction and transport can amplify or suppress heterogeneity and generate recognizable structures across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This can be illustrated by acidization wormholes, karst networks, reactive melt channels in magmatic rocks, and diagenetic features such as concretions, reaction fronts and precipitation and/or dissolution patterns.

The underlying challenge is common to all of them: how reactions in individual pores become expressed as large-scale patterns and as changes in porosity and permeability — a question shared across sedimentology, geochemistry, hydrology, petrophysics, and geophysics. It matters wherever reactive flow must be predicted or engineered: carbon storage and mineralization, hydrogen production, geothermal energy, hydrocarbon recovery, nuclear waste repositories, and contaminant transport and remediation.

This field covers approaches, methodologies, and scales of a wide variety. X-ray imaging, microfluidics, and other in situ methods now resolve local mineral reactions as the geometry of the medium evolves. Computational advances bridge pores, fractures, laboratory samples, and field systems. Rock record study shows how these processes accumulate and interact over geological time, on timescales no experiment can reach.

Thereby, we invite contributions on reactive transport and diagenesis from experiments, field observations, theory, and computation. Studies may address dissolution, precipitation, cementation, mineral replacement, authigenesis, water-rock interaction, or biogeochemical transformations. They should investigate the consequences of these processes on porosity, permeability, flow localization, and pattern formation. Work at any scale is welcome; from single pores and table-top experiments to hydrogeological systems and sedimentary basins.

Subsurface energy and environmental systems like geothermal energy systems, geological carbon storage, underground hydrogen storage, groundwater flow systems, etc., play a vital role for mitigating climate change and achieving net-zero. At the same time, their complex, heterogeneous, multiscale, and uncertain nature presents major challenges for modelling, prediction, monitoring, and decision-making, particularly in multiphysics and multiscale model coupling, data integration, and real-time monitoring and control.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and scientific machine learning (SciML) are creating new opportunities to address these challenges. This session aims to bring together researchers from geoscience, hydrology, subsurface energy, computational science, and AI to discuss recent advances at the interface between these fields. We invite contributions on the development and application of AI and SciML methods for subsurface energy and environmental systems. Topics include, but are not limited to, physics-informed machine learning, neural operators, reduced-order modelling, surrogate and generative modelling, multimodal data fusion, digital twins, explainable and trustworthy AI, large language models, and agentic AI.
The session will provide a platform for interdisciplinary exchange on emerging methods, practical applications, current limitations, and future research directions.

Earth Observation (EO) offers a powerful means of monitoring changes in climate, ecosystems, and human environments at both global and local scales. These observations generate a wide array of climate and environmental variables, and they are delivered as Analysis-Ready Data (ARD). While ARD is globally accessible and scientifically robust, it might lack the specificity and contextual relevance required to effectively address local challenges. To bridge this gap, ARD must be transformed into Action-Ready Information (ARI): tailored data products and insights that support local decision-making and reflect community priorities. This transformation depends on co-creation, a collaborative process involving local communities, scientists, engineers, policymakers, and private sector stakeholders. For example, by integrating satellite EO with locally collected data from ground, water, and airborne platforms, we can enhance data granularity, validate satellite outputs, and generate customized, equitable, and actionable solutions. This session will explore how data can be harnessed to support environmental monitoring, local climate mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development. It will emphasize the importance of identifying gaps between global datasets and local needs, and present strategies to close these gaps through innovation (e.g. new technologies and open FAIR science), inclusive engagement, and capacity building. Economic and policy dimensions will also be addressed, including the sustainability of community-led initiatives, the role of citizen science, funding mechanisms, and scalable technologies that enhance data utility for local solutions. The practical implementation challenges confronting policymakers when seeking to engage with EO data, particularly in the context of constrained policy capacities, will also be discussed. We invite participants from across/around the EO ecosystem: researchers in both physical and social sciences, community leaders, and stakeholders from policy and business sectors. We do not limit us only to satellite EO. We do consider non-EO observations and data, and their applications. We will share case studies, identify synergies between global and local efforts, and co-create knowledge that informs both local action and global strategies. By synthesizing diverse experiences, this session aims to advance EO as a tool for addressing the interconnected climate and environmental challenges we face locally and globally.

The dynamics of magmatic systems are driven by complex processes that span from deep mantle melt generation to volcanic eruptions at the surface. These processes include: melt generation in the upper mantle and lower crust, magma transport, differentiation and emplacement in the crust, complex melt-rock interactions, genesis of energy and mineral resources, and volcanic extrusions with related hazards. Such fluid-mechanical and thermo-chemical processes operate across sub-millimetre to kilometre scales and timescales ranging from seconds to millions of years , and involve multiple phases, such as liquid melt, solid crystals, volatile and metal-bearing fluids, and pyroclasts. Understanding these processes requires a multidisciplinary approach, combining observations, experiments, and computational methods including forward and inverse modelling and machine learning.

Despite the crucial role of computational methods in integrating and interpreting data from various sources, there has been limited development of a dedicated community across volcanic, petrology, and magmatic studies. For the fourth consecutive year, this session aims to address this gap by focusing on computational approaches to understanding volcanic and magmatic systems. We seek to bring together researchers working on forward and inverse modelling, machine learning, and other computational methods to foster a thriving and collaborative community that complements well-established observational and experimental lines of work.

We encourage contributions that explore the theory, development, application, and validation of computational approaches for integrating and interpreting experimental and observational data to improve our understanding of volcanic and magmatic processes. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

- Multiphase flow dynamics
- Thermodynamics and phase equilibria
- Magma transport and storage
- Chemical and rheological melt-rock interactions
- Crystallization, immiscibility, and degassing processes
- Energy and mineral resource genesis
- Magma-hydrothermal interactions
- Eruption dynamics and hazards

This session aims to provide a platform for in-depth technical discussions that are challenging to facilitate in broader multidisciplinary sessions, ultimately fostering a stronger computational community within volcanic and magmatic studies.

Sitting under a tree, you feel the spark of an idea, and suddenly everything falls into place. The following days and tests confirm: you have made a magnificent discovery — so the classical story of scientific genius goes…

But science as a human activity is error-prone, and might be more adequately described as "trial and error". Handling mistakes and setbacks is therefore a key skill of scientists. Yet, we publish only those parts of our research that did work. That is also because a study may have better chances to be accepted for scientific publication if it confirms an accepted theory or reaches a positive result (publication bias). Conversely, the cases that fail in their test of a new method or idea often end up in a drawer (which is why publication bias is also sometimes called the "file drawer effect"). This is potentially a waste of time and resources within our community, as other scientists may set about testing the same idea or model setup without being aware of previous failed attempts.

Thus, we want to turn the story around, and ask you to share 1) those ideas that seemed magnificent but turned out not to be, and 2) the errors, bugs, and mistakes in your work that made the scientific road bumpy. In the spirit of open science and in an interdisciplinary setting, we want to bring the BUGS out of the drawers and into the spotlight. What ideas were torn down or did not work, and what concepts survived in the ashes or were robust despite errors?

We explicitly solicit Blunders, Unexpected Glitches, and Surprises (BUGS) from modeling and field or lab experiments and from all disciplines of the Geosciences.

In a friendly atmosphere, we will learn from each other’s mistakes, understand the impact of errors and abandoned paths on our work, give each other ideas for shared problems, and generate new insights for our science or scientific practice.

Here are some ideas for contributions that we would love to see:
- Ideas that sounded good at first, but turned out to not work.
- Results that presented themselves as great in the first place but turned out to be caused by a bug or measurement error.
- Errors and slip-ups that resulted in insights.
- Failed experiments and negative results.
- Obstacles and dead ends you found and would like to warn others about.

For inspiration, see the collection of BUGS - ranging from clay bricks to atmospheric temperature extremes - at https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/52496

How do global changes in climate, land use and development translate into water security challenges for particular places, and how can local research and responses, as well as stakeholders' perspectives, inform wider understanding and action? This session will explore connections among global, regional, and local perspectives on water availability, water quality, water-related hazards, equitable access, and ecosystem health.

We bring together hydrology, environmental science, engineering, ecology, geography and social science to examine water security across scales. We welcome conceptual, methodological and empirical contributions connecting large-scale assessments with catchment-, urban- and community-level research.

Topics of interest include:
- Interactions between global environmental change and local water security;
- Multi-scale observation, modelling and assessment;
- Connections between scientific evidence, community knowledge and water management;
- Adaptation and management across scales;
- Comparative studies and synthesis examining how water security challenges and responses differ across climatic, socioeconomic and institutional contexts, and what can be learned or transferred between them.

We encourage contributions from diverse settings worldwide, including Africa, Asia, South America and Europe, across urban, peri-urban and rural environments. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary studies as well as collaborations with practitioners and communities are particularly welcome. Single-location studies are also welcome where connections across scales or wider implications are made explicit. The aim is to advance dialogue between global and local research and identify opportunities for shared learning and more effective water management.

Science informed policy making has been successful in the past on multiple levels: Academic findings in the fields of energy and resources have contributed to the shaping of European frameworks such as the EU renewable-energy targets or the Circular Economy Action Plan. On national levels, scientists have shaped policy with their expertise as can be seen across Europe. Cities and communities base their policies on the direct input of scientists to shape their living spaces.
Over the last 25 years, since the ERE division’s creation, scientific research spanning renewable energy, raw materials and resources and geo-storage have generated knowledge relevant to policy makers. From the European Union to national and institutional policies we see an impactful contribution of scientists. This session features the research and different pathways in which science has contributed to a variety of policy levels. We will explore how scientific research has shaped energy and resource-use policies across scales. A special focus will be put to the communication and transition of scientific findings into policy.