Environmental Sensing and Modelling

Today, planetary-scale changes are mainly driven by a growing demand for resources. The Earth system – encompassing climate and environment – is now operating in an unprecedented, or so-called ‘no-analogue’ state (1), where unpredictable and harmful changes are increasingly likely. What constitutes a global threat to peace and prosperity translates, at the European and national scales, into multiple perils: increased drought risk (which has already caused billions of annual losses to agriculture, the energy sector and the public water supply), worsening water quality (as caused by cloudburst events, rising water temperatures encouraging the growth of toxic algae and bacteria), more frequent (flash-)flooding, an alarming loss of biodiversity, and a decline in ecosystem functioning and the services and benefits they provide to people.

Global and coordinated efforts are set out in frameworks such as the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and its subsequent Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the global post-2020 biodiversity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), or the UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. The European Commission’s response to global change is based on actions such as the future Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which integrates climate change action, environmental care, the preservation of landscapes and biodiversity, fair income for farmers, and the protection of food and health quality. The European Green Deal and associated actions (e.g. the Farm to Fork strategy, the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030, the European Climate Law) further articulate the EU’s ambitions for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by the middle of this century, while restoring biodiversity and natural habitat.

Objectives

The fat-tailed probabilities of environmental catastrophes – stemming from the inability of conventional analytical tools to capture the uncertainties of climate/global change – place policymakers in the challenging position of anticipating evolutions and making decisions in a world of ‘uncertainty’ (i.e. where probabilities are unknown), rather than in a world of ‘risk’ (i.e. where probabilities are known) (2).
The mission of the Environmental Sensing and Modelling unit is to contribute to the development of new generations of robust technological solutions and decision support tools for the sustainable management of natural resources, adapted to rapidly changing boundary conditions. In the long run, the vision of the Environmental Sensing and Modelling unit is to detach socio-economic development from environmental pressures, in alignment with the European Commission’s 8th Environment Action Programme and the environment and climate action objectives of the European Green Deal). This policy framework targets a regenerative economy by 2050, characterized by zero waste, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and economic growth decoupled from resource use and environmental degradation . Ultimately, this stands as the unit’s genuine contribution to LIST’s mission to support policymakers and create socio-economic value in a sustainable way. The unit aims to be a partner to stakeholders in risk-taking and the delivery of innovative solutions with a short-, mid- and long-term impact.

Scope of expertise 

The unit carries out impact-driven research, geared towards monitoring, forecasting and predicting environmental systems in a changing world. Its interdisciplinary team – comprising nearly 90 scientists, engineers, post-docs and PhD candidates – supports the public and private sectors by developing new process understanding, alongside new tools and technologies, operating at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales. The unit comprises four complementary research groups and one support entity:

• The Agro-environmental systems group aims to deliver a holistic understanding of the bio-geophysical functioning of agro-environmental systems. It develops sustainable soft- and hardware solutions that enhance the resilience and productivity of agro-environmental systems, and address challenges posed by climate change, economic pressures, environmental regulations and societal demands.
• The Biodiversity monitoring and assessment group innovates data collection, processing and analysis to understand biodiversity dynamics in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems. It develops and combines various approaches and technologies to assess the status and trends of living organisms in rapidly changing environmental conditions.
• The Catchment and eco-hydrology group applies a synergistic approach to assess the dynamics of eco-hydrological systems subject to global change. It deploys innovative strategies, tools and concepts for reducing uncertainties in the attribution of extremes and climate change impacts, thereby providing a new narrative for eco-hydrological system re-engineering scenarios.
• The Remote sensing and natural resources modelling group combines remote sensing information obtained from spaceborne and airborne platforms together with in-situ monitoring data. It provides information on the status of natural resources and predicts environmental changes for local, regional and global stakeholders in near real-time.
• The Luxembourg eco-hydrological observatory supports research groups by continuing to develop innovative environmental monitoring approaches and observation techniques in Luxembourg and beyond. It provides cutting-edge expertise to the scientific community and stakeholders for their assessments of the dynamics and changes in the geography of climate, hydrology and biodiversity.

Delivering novel technological solutions and decision-support tools to help decouple natural resource use and climate change impact from economic development is a core value proposition of the ENVISION unit. This enables stakeholders to navigate emergency response operations, immediate economic interests and long-term sustainable development objectives in a rapidly evolving and uncertain context.
Impact-driven research focuses on monitoring, understanding, forecasting and predicting environmental systems in a changing world. Newly gained Earth system process understanding is leveraged within the unit to develop tools and technologies, that operate at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales. These are tailored for crop protection and precision agriculture, water resource management, natural disaster response, nature conservation, and climate mitigation and adaptation.

(1) Steffen, W. et al. (2016), Stratigraphic and Earth System approaches to defining the Anthropocene, Earth’s Future, 4, doi:10.1002/2016EF000379.

(2) Heal G. and Millner A., 2014. Uncertainty and Decision Making in Climate Change Economics. In: Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, vol. 8, 120–137. doi:10.1093/reep/ret023