The tephra research community’s data and metadata discovery, access, and archiving challenges mirror those of many geoscience disciplines. Tephra research is commonly multidisciplinary with applications including volcanology, geochronology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, archaeology, and others. As the community continues to encourage and adopt recommended documentation and reporting practices (e.g. Wallace et al., 2022), new data will become more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and thereby accelerate progress on multidisciplinary research questions.

The Tephra Information Portal (TIP) is developed to provide researchers with a central hub for discovering, accessing, and sharing data and sample information. The TIP is envisioned to facilitate and strengthen collaboration of researchers from across disciplines through more effective data sharing. Several initial data systems and tools (EarthChem, PetDB, SESAR, GeoDIVA, Tephrabase, and StraboSpot) are being linked to the TIP prototype, and others of interest to the community may be added in the future. The target audience of this town hall is any researcher who produces or uses tephra information and samples and who is potentially interested in becoming a TIP user or data contributor.

In this Town Hall, we will share the goals of TIP and provide an update on progress made so far and the anticipated goals of the project. We will gather input to help guide the design of TIP’s services for data access and data publication and to help the project better align with user needs, expectations, and research work flows. We will demonstrate use of the TIP user interface, invite participants to try it out for themselves, and answer questions. We will invite your participation in the TIP, discuss how to make your data discoverable through the TIP, and we will collect and share community feedback on the TIP progress and direction. We look forward to sharing TIP’s progress and hearing from the community at this EGU 2026 Town Hall.

The IAHS scientific decade Panta Rhei—Change in Hydrology and Society (2013–2022) catalyzed a global, community-driven effort to advance hydrology in an era when water dynamics are increasingly shaped by human decisions, institutions, infrastructure, and socio-economic change. The newly published Panta Rhei Synthesis Book ‘Coevolution and Prediction of Coupled Human–Water Systems: A Sociohydrologic Synthesis of Change in Hydrology and Society’ distills a decade of interdisciplinary progress into a coherent narrative. Key insights are presented around coupled human–water systems and sociohydrology: the two-way feedback between hydrological processes and human actions, the emergence of new system behaviors, and the unintended consequences of interventions. These concepts are now central to understanding and predicting floods and droughts, managing water quality and allocation, designing resilient infrastructure, and supporting equitable governance under climate change and rapid development.
Triggered by the comprehensive presentation of recent achievements in the Panta Rhei Synthesis Book we organize this Townhall meeting at EGU26 to (i) present the key results and methodological advances in a highly accessible way, (ii) connect researchers across EGU divisions who work on hydrology, hazards, climate impacts, ecology, and socio-environmental systems, and (iii) discuss and identify concrete next steps for advancing research on the coevolution in Coupled Human–Water Systems. The target audience includes hydrologists and interdisciplinary modelers, practitioners and decision-support developers, and, importantly, early career scientists and students seeking a roadmap for coupled human–water systems research and training.
The session will combine a brief overview of the key results via lightning talks by editors and authors of the Panta Rhei synthesis book, followed by a moderated open discussion. The discussion will focus on actionable outcomes: (1) priority research questions and benchmark challenges for coupled human–water systems prediction; (2) shared needs for data, models, and evaluation protocols; (3) pathways to translate sociohydrological insights into operational practice; and (4) community-building actions within EGU (e.g., follow-up activities, teaching resources, and future session themes).

Climateurope2 is an EU-funded project advancing future equitable and quality-assured climate services of greater value to society, providing trustworthy, user-relevant and usable information. The project works to develop standardisation procedures and recommendations for climate services, while supporting and bringing together the European climate services community. In addition, Climateurope2 strives to promote the uptake of quality-assured climate services to support adaptation and mitigation to climate change and variability. The project consortium gathers actors spanning a wide spectrum of technical expertise and climate services as well as social sciences and humanities.

One part of the project, is to identify the support and standardisation needs of climate services, including criteria for certification and labelling, along with the user-driven criteria needed to support climate action. The gathered information is used to propose a taxonomy of climate services, suggest community-based good practices and guidelines, and propose standards where possible. Climateurope2 serves as a platform to build a community of practice for this standardisation using approaches from social sciences and humanities, alongside extensive technical expertise. The project aims for co-production and stakeholder engagement and therefore created a network of different European climate services actors. To support this community, a large variety of interactive and innovative activities are organised.

This townhall will present some of the project's latest achievements, in particular the newly developed set of recommendations on data & processes covering the following topics: metadata and standards, traceability, verification, and uncertainty and climate risk assessment. The goal will be to gather feedback on the developed guidelines to inform the synthesizing process before delivering recommendations for future certification and labelling. We will also present the Climateurope2 Platform as an entry point for ongoing engagement and collaboration across the climate service community. The session will foster open discussion and exchange among all stakeholders in the climate service community, encouraging community building, and knowledge exchange.

The Commission on Tephrochronology (COT), part of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI), is planning a community meeting to discuss current and future events occurring within our scientific community. The CoT Executive will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to the membership, following the most recent elections and appointments, whilst also outlining their roles and responsibilities within the commission. Here at the meeting, we will be discussing future meetings, workshops, and conference sessions, and overall opportunities to get involved. Specifically, we will be seeking our memberships for input and a final decision on the location of the next CoT international meeting. An expression of interest to host the meeting, that will take place in 2028, was made in 2025 following our last international meeting in Catania (Italy) in 2024. Here we hope to make some announcements.
The meeting will also be discussing and providing updates on several new community driven initiatives, for instance, LA-ICP-MS inter-laboratory comparisons, specifically exploring the development of natural volcanic glass standards for trace element analysis to overcome analytical challenges of volcanic glasses, and the standardisation of analytical approaches and data reduction methods to improve data comparisons across the community (an initiative led by the Tephra Intercomparison Project – TIP). We will also be providing updates on the ongoing tephra related special issues that are currently in progress in GeoHorizons (a joint publication between the AGU and Geological Society, and in partnership with the IAVCEI Tephra Hazard Modelling Commission) and the Journal of Quaternary Science. We will also be designating time at the end of the meeting for general discussions and updates related to the Commission on Tephrochronology, providing an opportunity for community partners to make announcements, and for members of our tephra and volcanological community to provide feedback and initiate discussions on anything else tephra related.

The Kotak School of Sustainability (KSS) at IIT Kanpur is India’s first dedicated academic and research school focused entirely on advancing sustainability through science, technology, policy, and innovation. KSS seeks to bring together scientists, engineers, and policymakers to address pressing global and regional challenges related to climate change, extreme weather, air quality, clean energy transition, water management systems, environmental resilience, and sustainable development pathways
This townhall meeting aims to introduce the vision, mission, and strategic priorities of the Kotak School of Sustainability to the international community at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) Assembly. It will highlight ongoing and emerging research initiatives, thematic clusters, and collaborative platforms under development at KSS, while showcasing how the School seeks to serve as a hub for advancing sustainability research and capacity building in India and beyond. The session intends to create a dialogue space for meaningful engagement between KSS and the global geoscience community.
The townhall will include a moderated discussion and open floor engagement. Key questions will include:
• How can global North–South partnerships be structured to advance sustainability science and societal impact?
• What geoscience-driven research themes offer the greatest potential for collaborative action?
The discussion will highlight opportunities for international research collaboration, joint academic initiatives, faculty and student mobility, co-design of research projects, technology co-development and partnerships. Special attention will be given to opportunities for early-career researchers, doctoral students, postdoctoral scholars, and academic collaborators interested in contributing to KSS’s growing ecosystem in sustainability science.
The target audience includes geoscientists, climate researchers, environmental scientists, policy experts, academic leaders, research institutions, funding bodies, and industry or societal stakeholders interested in collaborative sustainability initiatives.
Expected outcomes of this townhall include identifying potential partners, shaping collaborative research priorities, initiating discussions toward formal institutional linkages, and establishing pathways for knowledge exchange and capacity building. The session will also highlight prospective job and career opportunities at the Kotak School of Sustainability, including future faculty, postdoctoral, and research positions. This townhall shall build long-term international networks that strengthen global cooperation and accelerate impactful solutions for a more sustainable and resilient future.

Large regions of the world remain poorly observed, as atmospheric and climatic variables are difficult to measure consistently, particularly in deserts, remote forests, wetlands, rivers, polar environments, and areas with limited infrastructure. These observational gaps constrain our ability to detect climate change signals, understand multi-hazard and extreme events, validate Earth observation products, and support effective climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. While satellite observations provide global coverage, their time-series is temporally discontinuous. Further, they rely on well-designed and sustained in-situ measurements for calibration, validation, and interpretation. However, deploying and maintaining in-situ observations in hard-to-reach areas remains a major scientific, technical, and operational challenge.

This Townhall meeting focuses on the challenges and opportunities of in-situ observations in hard-to-reach environments, drawing on recent experiences from Horizon Europe projects CiROCCO, EULIAA, UAWOS, TEMBO-Africa, MISO, and RemoTrees, operating across diverse domains, including forests, water environments, atmospheric processes, greenhouse gas monitoring arid and remote regions. These initiatives explore autonomous and low-cost sensing technologies, innovative power and communication solutions, and strategies for long-term operation with minimal human intervention. Rather than highlighting individual project outcomes, the Townhall aims to foster a broader community discussion on shared challenges, lessons learned, and realistic pathways for scaling in-situ observing approaches under demanding environmental and logistical conditions.
The target audience includes geoscientists involved in Earth observations - of which an integral component is in-situ monitoring- and data integration specialists, climate and environmental modellers, and researchers working on climate services, impacts, and risk assessments. The meeting is also relevant for research infrastructure developers, early-career researchers, and scientists interested in fusing in-situ observations with satellite data, models, and decision-support tools, particularly in under-sampled regions.

The expected outcomes are threefold. First, to identify common technical, logistical, and scientific challenges associated with deploying and sustaining in-situ observations in hard-to-reach areas, including trade-offs between cost, accuracy, autonomy, and long-term reliability. Second, to discuss emerging good practices and innovative solutions that enhance the scientific value, interoperability, and usability of such observations, especially when combined with remote sensing and modelling frameworks. Third, to stimulate cross-disciplinary dialogue within the EGU community and encourage future collaboration, contributing to more resilient, inclusive, and effective observation solutions capable of supporting climate change research and decision-making.

Over the past decade, a range of research shows drylands play critical roles in Earth’s climate and the sustenance of humankind. Covering almost half of Earth's land surface, drylands display remarkable sensitivity to disturbance, climate extremes, and rising atmospheric CO2. Yet the cross-scale, predictive understanding of these ecosystems remains poor because of their complex spatial and temporal variability. This includes rapid responses to irregular rainfall pulses as well as high spatial variability of vegetation species intermixed with bare soil and biocrust communities. New multi- and hyperspectral, LiDAR, and microwave satellite missions provide innovative opportunities to scale measurements made in-situ up to landscapes, regions, and the planet; operational and planned NASA and ESA missions offer novel data at the high-spatial resolutions needed for heterogeneous drylands. Now is a critical time for a field campaign to measure dryland states and fluxes for better interpretation of satellite measurements to improve our observational and modeling capabilities of drylands.

This Town Hall features the advances, findings, study design, and implementation plan for the proposed NASA Adaptation and Response in Drylands (ARID) Terrestrial Ecology Field Campaign. More information can be found about recent ARID scoping activities at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2024EF004811

Our goal is to both share the ARID scoping study’s determination of the big questions, data needs, and research opportunities for dryland science as well as seek feedback from the EGU audience on research and applications directions for ARID. We seek continued community perspectives on the most optimal approach for a multi-scale field campaign that revolutionizes the understanding, assessment, and modeling of our planet’s drylands in the context of climate impacts, mitigation and adaptation solutions, and decision-making opportunities for sustaining the Earth system and society.

Expected Outcomes
We have shared the campaign ideas with the United States-based and global research community throughout 2024, but expect that extensive new perspectives will be obtained from EGU conference attendees who we have not yet reached. Therefore, in reaching a broad community that EGU conference attendees encompass, our expected outcomes include (1) wider dissemination of the current ARID campaign design and implementation plan and (2) feedback on our campaign design at a critical time when elements of the campaign are being considered for near future implementation.

Target Audience
All researchers with an interest in dryland or seasonally dry ecosystems are welcome across career stages and across fields, including biogeosciences, hydrology, and atmospheric sciences.

Long-term observations of river flow are essential for understanding hydrological variability, detecting climate-induced changes, and supporting regional and global water resource assessment and management. However, in many parts of the world, in situ river discharge measurements are declining due to limited resources, restricted access to data, and heterogeneous monitoring practices. As a result, there is a growing need for complementary and consistent long-term discharge information that can support large-scale hydrological studies and climate applications.
Satellite-based approaches offer a unique opportunity to fill this gap, enabling spatially consistent, long-term monitoring of river discharge across different hydrological and climatic regions. In this context, the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) Discharge precursor project aims to develop long-term, homogeneous satellite-derived river discharge data sets covering more than two decades, designed to support large-scale climate studies, hydrological models and assessments. Ensuring that these data sets meet user needs, are scientifically robust and fit for purpose requires close interaction between data developers and the user community.

This Townhall meeting is organised as a workshop for users of the CCI Discharge precursor project. Its main objective is to bring together current and potential users of long-term satellite data on river flow to share information on approaches to developing datasets, discuss strengths and limitations, and explore potential applications. The meeting will provide an overview of CCI Discharge products, including the satellite observations used, methodological frameworks, uncertainty characterisation and data access, avoiding duplication with the scientific sessions.
The target audience includes hydrologists, climate scientists, Earth observation specialists, modellers, and professionals interested in long-term runoff time series for applications such as climate variability and change analysis, trend detection, model benchmarking, data assimilation, and global or continental-scale hydrological studies. The public meeting is also relevant for users working in regions with poor data availability, where satellite-derived discharge products can provide complementary information that is critical to sparse ground-based networks.
The expected outcomes of the meeting include increased awareness of the CCI Discharge precursor datasets, a better understanding of their appropriate use and limitations, and the collection of structured feedback from users on data requirements, usability and future developments. This feedback will directly influence current and future phases of the CCI Discharge precursor project, supporting the co-design of satellite products related to river discharges and promoting their adoption by the wider hydrological and climate research communities.

Solar Terrestrial and Solar Planetary plasma physics (corresponding to EGU ST division and PS division, respectively) have significant overlap in terms of common fundamental physics and with scientific groups working on both subjects.
We consider that this can be covered by the single disciplinary term of Heliophysics, a term now commonly used by NASA and ESA, which we broadly use to describe the science of understanding the Sun and its interaction with bodies in the solar system (including the Earth, planets and small bodies) and the solar system medium itself. Heliophysics is a discipline that has a large and active international community, with substantial expertise and mission heritage in the European Space Agency and Europe.

The broad nature of this science has meant that there is no single community list or organizational body associated with it in Europe. This hinders the progress of the community in terms of interactions to facilitate science, advertising career opportunities, as well as team building for mission and project proposals to various funding bodies.
To address this, the European Heliophysics Community (EHC) was formed with the aim to improve communication between European heliophysics scientists across this broad discipline. This has included several previous splinter meetings at EGU, the beginning of a series of "Heliophysics in Europe" workshops both in person and online, specific EGU sessions related to this topic (utilising the EHC term in the session title), and a recent publication outlining further steps (https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-43-855-2025).

This townhall meeting will build the foundation for working groups, grow and mature the EHC and will ensure that we capture as many people who may not even know they can identify as a Heliophysicist. Such community building will lead to better communication of activities, science and opportunities (in particular to support Early Career Researchers). This will also work to identify commonalities and synergies and demonstrate the diversity of this science and its unique and powerful cross disciplinary nature. ALL are welcome.
Session Agenda
1. Introduction: What is EHC ?
2. Forum Report and Community outreach
3. Working Groups and Membership call
4. 3rd Heliophysics in Europe meeting
5. Discussions, Summary, Outlook

In recent years, Geosciences have faced unprecedented political, societal, and institutional pressures. In the United States, funding instability, political polarisation, and organised anti-science narratives have tested the resilience of scientific institutions. Yet the U.S. scientific community has also demonstrated adaptability, institutional robustness, and a renewed engagement with society.
Across Europe, research systems have long been perceived as structurally more insulated from political turbulence. However, the emergence of populist movements, AI deep fakes, growing distrust in expertise, pressures on long-term funding commitments, and the politicisation of climate and environmental science suggest that similar vulnerabilities may be developing.
This panel, building on a previous panel discussion held at AGU25, is organised by the New Frontiers Committee of the AGU College of Fellows, and brings together scientific leaders and academics from both sides of the Atlantic to examine how can we as scientists work with economic powers to integrate evidence-based scientific communication and institutional integrity, and counter misinformation? By comparing scientific data sharing, funding architectures, public trust dynamics, and the protection of long-term observational infrastructures, we explore areas where resilience has been demonstrated, where fragilities remain, and which lessons can be learned across systems.
Rather than assuming immunity, this discussion aims to identify structural safeguards, cultural assets, and points of exposure that will shape the future of Geosciences in an age where expertise itself is being questioned. This panel is therefore aimed at the entire AGU and EGU communities, across all disciplines, and will undoubtedly point towards new areas of collaboration.

The polar regions are experiencing rapid environmental change with global consequences, while early career researchers (ECRs) working in polar and cryosphere research face increasing challenges related to career precarity, increasing interdisciplinarity, geographic isolation, and limited access to international networks. Addressing these challenges requires not only scientific excellence, but also the support of strong, inclusive communities that foster participation, collaboration, and long-term capacity building. The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) is an international, interdisciplinary organization that supports early career researchers, educators, and practitioners engaged in polar and cryosphere science through community building, mentorship, professional training, and science–society engagement.

This Townhall meeting aims to provide an open and interactive forum to share information about APECS activities and to facilitate discussion on how early career engagement, participation, and community-driven initiatives can strengthen polar science and its connections to society. Rather than focusing on scientific results, the meeting will center on people, processes, and participation, complementing the scientific sessions of the European Geosciences Union General Assembly by addressing the social and collaborative dimensions of polar research.

The target audience includes early career scientists across disciplines, senior researchers interested in mentorship and community engagement, educators, science communicators, and conference participants working at the interface of polar science, society, and policy. The Townhall is open to all registered participants, both on-site and online, and is particularly relevant for those interested in inclusive research cultures, interdisciplinary, participatory practices, and long-term capacity building in polar and cryosphere research.

The meeting will begin with a brief overview of APECS, followed by short contributions highlighting selected community-driven initiatives related to training, mentorship, science communication, and public engagement. The second half of the Townhall will feature a short, moderated panel discussion, followed by an open-floor dialogue inviting participants to share perspectives on current needs, challenges, and opportunities for strengthening early career participation in polar science. Topics may include barriers to engagement, inclusive community practices, interdisciplinary collaboration, and ways to better connect scientific research with societal actors.

Expected outcomes include increased awareness of APECS activities, exchange of experiences and ideas across career stages and disciplines, and the identification of priorities for future community-led initiatives. The Townhall aims to foster dialogue, networking, and collaboration, contributing to a more inclusive, connected, and resilient polar research community beyond the conference.

Motivation:
Societies and ecosystems face growing risks from climate change, and the need for adaptation becomes more and more evident. Many governments have even started to mainstream the inclusion of “climate proofing” in public and private investments. Regional climate information is therefore increasingly needed to underpin climate risk assessments, adaptation planning and climate proofing. To avoid both maladaptation and misusing risk assessments for mere regulatory box-ticking, the climate information has to fulfill at least minimum requirements in terms of trustworthiness and fitness for the specific decision making context. Such information is often referred to as robust information.
Despite its relevance and timeliness, there is neither a consensus of what actually constitutes robust climate information, nor is it clear how the use of such information could be mainstreamed.
The Core Project Regional Information for Society (RIfS) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) has therefore recently launched the Robust Information Working Group (RIWG). Understanding and mainstreaming robust information is a transdisciplinary endeavour, the working group thus not only includes climate scientists and impact modelers, but also philosophers, social scientists and stakeholders.

Aim:
The aim of this townhall is, first, to present the aims, plans and initial results of the Working Group to both scientists across all involved disciplines as well as stakeholders and decision makers. Second, we aim to brainstorm ideas and get feedback in small groups discussing different aspects of robustness.

Target Audience:
We invite (1) all involved scientific disciplines, including climate scientists, impact modelers, philosophers of science, moral philosophers, economists, and social scientists. (2) public and private stakeholders, decision makers, representatives of regulatory bodies.

Expected Outcomes:
Raising awareness about the need for robust information; increasing visibility of the working group; extending the network of the working group and engaging with people; receiving feedback to feed into the work of the group.

"A journey through turbulence and climate change using multiple-art media" - this project proposes two artistic performances that build a strong emotional connection to two key topics within the Geosciences: turbulence in fluid dynamics and climate change. The first part of the project jointly leverages multiple-art media to trigger an emotional connection to how our actions today affect the climate that future generations will live in. We will express data on the recent and projected future climate and climate extremes in the form of music and moving image, engaging the audience through multiple senses. The second part of the project transforms real and simulated fluid dynamics data—governed by the Navier-Stokes equations—into music, movement, and visuals. Using both experimental measurements from the von Kármán setup at SPEC and numerical simulations. We would like to present the results of the first part of the project, in the form of an audiovisual performance, at a Townhall meeting during EGU 2026.
The performance will focus on the time delay between action and consequence: what we do today affects future generations. Decisions that we take today can force an undesirable climatic future on future generations, and limit their freedom of choice. A related theme is the disappearance of possibilities. When we make choices today which are not in line with minimising climate change, we are effectively making certain climatic futures less likely, or even impossible.
The target audience is broad, spanning most divisions of EGU, as we believe that the majority of EGU attendees has an interest for the ongoing human-driven changes in Earth’s climate system. The outcome that we hope to achieve is an emotional connection to the human relevance of climate change, beyond the scientific and quantitative understanding of climate change that many of EGU’s attendees likely already have. We indeed argue that music and visual art offer a compelling way to connect scientific understanding with emotional understanding. This is fully in line with EGU’s value to promote the use of geoscience knowledge for the benefit of humanity and the planet.

Motivations:
Climate model intercomparisons are essential to develop the predictive power of numerical simulations. Deep time models are increasingly needed to explore the Earth System behaviors beyond tipping points. Geologic periods 10s to 100s of millions of years back into the Phanerozoic eon are now in focus but these come with age-increasing paleogeographic uncertainty. Plate tectonic configurations, topographic reconstructions and biogeochemical behaviors become less and less constrained in deeper time. The same applies to proxy datasets required to validate models. Despite these challenges, Phanerozoic simulations open a vast field of fascinating questions on long term evolution and major short-term extreme events.

Target audience:
We will gather climate modelers, paleogeographers and Earth system scientists to present and discuss ways forward to develop the new DeepMIP-Phan project (which numerical models to apply, paleogeographic reconstructions to use, ages to explore, proxies, etc). Please join if you are interested in the topic and willing to contribute your expertise in this exciting endeavour.

Expected outcomes:
The main goal is to gather climate modelers and paleogeographers and Earth system scientists around a new endeavour following the DeepMIP* initiative. "DeepMip-Phan" probing further into deep time throughout the Phanerozoic requires not only to compare types of numerical models but also various paleogeographic reconstruction methods that can deliver widely different constraints. This involves defining new methodological protocols and experimental design for model-paleogeography-data validations and standard formats of end products. We aim to bring together multidisciplinary communities to inform us about key Phanerozoic intervals and significant global to regional paleobiogeographic events and their implications for biogeochemical cycles in the past and the future.
This meeting aims to discuss these issues in order to define the project tasks and participants.
*DeepMIP– The Deep-Time Model Intercomparison Project. Deepmip is dedicated to conceiving, designing, carrying out, analysing, and disseminating, an international effort to improve our understanding of Deep Time climates.
https://www.deepmip.org/

The year 2024 was the warmest on record, with climate-related disasters displacing 46 million people worldwide and natural catastrophes causing $417 billion in economic losses. In South America, the convergence of climate change–driven temperature anomalies, deforestation, and El Niño triggered severe droughts, resulting in unprecedented agricultural losses, escalating water-use conflicts, and rising political instability across commodity-dependent economies. In the Brazilian Amazon, 2024 marked the worst drought in 120 years, directly affecting hundreds of thousands of riverside and Indigenous communities.
Within this challenging climate landscape, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) convened in Belém in 2025 amid high expectations. Framed by Brazil’s president as the “COP of Truth,” the summit aimed to confront climate denial with scientific evidence and expose the gap between political rhetoric and concrete action. Central to this effort was the “Baku-to-Belém Mission to 1.5,” urging countries to clarify and strengthen emissions-reduction and adaptation targets. Yet attempts to raise ambition stalled, revealing deep divisions over a fossil-fuel phase-out roadmap. These tensions crystallized into a “coalition of the willing”, comprising more than 80 countries committed to strengthening emissions-reduction ambitions, in opposition to resistance from major petrostates. Compounding political resistance, meeting the financial needs of countries’ conditional commitments (those dependent on external funding) remains a major hurdle, as developing countries require $1.3 trillion per year by 2035 beyond self-funded targets — a number that is still far from secured.
This raises a central question: caught between countries’ (un)willingness and (un)conditional commitments, what future should we be preparing for? This Townhall brings together South American scientists present in Belém to reflect on progress and challenges ahead. As the world’s most unequal region, South America’s climate transition is inseparable from social policy, making progress especially complex. While rooted in the South American experience, the discussion resonates across global contexts.
We will examine the financial, scientific, and ethical dimensions of climate (un)agreements at COP30, focusing on:

(a) the credibility of climate finance commitments by developed economies;
(b) the role of early career researchers in addressing imbalances in technology access and knowledge transfer; and
(c) the extent to which Indigenous and ethnic minority voices were meaningfully included.
Ultimately, this discussion confronts the unresolved tensions exposed at the “COP of Truth” and explores the road ahead for global climate governance.

We invite you to join us at the EGU 2026 townhall session dedicated to the FLUXNET network of eddy covariance measurements and its many regional and related partners. This session welcomes everyone interested in the intersection of flux data and environmental science, including data producers, users, processors, software developers, synthesizers, educators, and those simply curious about these efforts. Our community thrives on collaboration and inclusivity, and we look forward to your participation.

The session will begin with a brief overview of key activities from flux networks around the globe. Highlights will include:

1) Opportunities for engagement in working groups, focusing on scientific collaboration, data availability, education, and career development for early-career researchers.
2) Updates on ongoing data and scientific initiatives, including ongoing effort for the Fluxnet2025 synthesis release, which promises to enhance understanding of global flux patterns.
3) International exchange opportunities, such as hosting students and participating in workshops and training sessions to foster knowledge sharing and skill development.

After the updates, we’ll transition into a structured, open discussion aimed at addressing the following topics:

• Informing global carbon, water, and energy budgets, as well as improving climate models.
• Enhancing data quality, availability, and usability for diverse scientific disciplines and user groups.
• Strengthening international collaboration through working groups, exchange programs, and strategic partnerships.
• Identifying pathways to better engage early-career scientists.
• Addressing challenges, research gaps, and data needs to advance the field.

We encourage all attendees to contribute their ideas and experiences during this discussion, helping shape the future of flux research and its broader applications.

The session will conclude with an off-site informal social event—an excellent opportunity to network, share ideas, and establish connections in a relaxed setting.

Our aim is to inform the scientific community about FLUXNET’s ongoing and future initiatives while inspiring new collaborations and research ventures.

We look forward to seeing you there and working together to advance the science of eddy covariance and beyond!

This Town Hall proposes the analysis and review of the interdisciplinary exploration of the Mediterranean and Black Sea starting from the sixties and culminating with advanced operational oceanographic services and advanced Digital Twins for coastal resilience. The initiative is being jointly developed by experts from the University of Bologna, the Decade Collaborative Centre for Coastal Resilience (DCC-CR), the UN Ocean Decade Programme CoastPredict, the University of Liège and the Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change. Their shared objective is to examine how knowledge production on these semi-enclosed basins has evolved, how technological and conceptual shifts have shaped the scientific understanding of their dynamics, and how historical perspectives may guide future developments in ocean science. The session aims to integrate interdisciplinary insights with broader historical and philosophical reflections, encouraging participants to reconsider the foundations upon which observational, modelling and analytical approaches to these regions have been built.

The Town Hall will feature concise presentations introducing both the historical evolution of Mediterranean and Black Sea oceanography and their contemporary relevance as grounds for innovation and sustainability.

A moderated discussion with slido will follow, addressing future perspectives and key questions such as:
Which aspects of the scientific investigations of the Mediterranean and Black Sea may usefully inform emerging strategies for observation, prediction and coastal resilience?
How might insights from the humanities help refine scientific priorities for these regions?

The target audience includes oceanographers, marine researchers, historians and philosophers of science, early-career scientists and all participants interested in interdisciplinary dialogue within the geosciences. Expected outcomes include strengthening exchanges across disciplines, identifying shared conceptual frameworks, and stimulating new thinking on the epistemological foundations of marine science, with potential implications for future research agendas across the EGU community.

The Deep-time Digital Earth (DDE) Big Science Program, initiated in 2019, is a global endeavor to harmonize and share solid Earth data. By leveraging digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, DDE aims to foster innovation and transform geoscience research. The program is coordinated by the DDE Secretariat in Suzhou, China, through an expanding worldwide network of research institutions.

DDE is proud to announce the launch of the DDE International Science Initiative (DDE-ISI). Supported by substantial funding from China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and other partners for 2025, this initiative represents a significant investment in the global geoscience community and is open to research groups of all nationalities. The DDE-ISI is structured around three strategic pillars: digital infrastructure development, international operations, and global collaboration in open scientific research. Our Townhall meeting will formally introduce the initiative, outline its objectives and eligibility, and provide a dynamic forum for brainstorming and forming research partnerships.

The scientific agenda of the DDE-ISI focuses on six priority themes: (1) Digital Technology (including AI and knowledge graphs), (2) Geological Mapping, (3) Plate Motion and Sea Level, (4) Earth Timeline and History, (5) Earth Modeling, and (6) Sustainable Development.

Funding will be allocated through a tiered framework designed to encourage collaboration among researchers at every career stage, from students to senior scientists, with particular attention to supporting early-career researchers and those from underrepresented regions. All proposals will be peer-reviewed or invited by the independent DDE Science Committee, which comprises internationally recognized experts.

The primary goal of this Townhall is to widely disseminate information about this new opportunity across the geoscience community. Expected outcomes include: (1) elevating the global profile of DDE-ISI, (2) enhancing community understanding of its goals and participation criteria, (3) facilitating direct engagement between researchers and the initiative's organizers, and (4) creating a collaborative environment to incubate pioneering research ideas.

Climate change is the biggest global challenge of the 21st century, affecting almost every sector in the world. However, climate change impacts are profoundly unequal, disproportionately affecting the world's marginalised people, particularly those from lower economic communities and those in vulnerable and disadvantaged situations. They include women, children, older persons, indigenous peoples, people of colour, minorities, migrants, rural workers, persons with disabilities, and the poor.

This Townhall Meeting will explore or come up with how policies can be implemented for marginalized people, especially those in low-income countries, and at the same time how such policies may prevent negative human rights impacts. Panelists from EDI, EGU policy, scientific and policy communities, with contributions from the audience, will explore a number of crucial issues related to climate policy-action for vulnerable and marginalised people. The target audience can be ECRs, scientists, policymakers, social activists, media persons etc.

Policy-action questions will include:
• How can we mobilize resources for sustainable, human-rights-based development for these people? How do we ensure EDI in climate action?
• How can we convince the UN to establish a special office and dedicated research budget for climate-impacted marginalised people?
• What are the effective dedicated policies and actions to reduce GHGs that also reduce the suffering of vulnerable people?
• How can GHG-emitting countries contribute to marginalized people, proportionally to their per-capita, GHG emissions?
• How may policies established by the UNFCCC and the UNDESA better take into account the challenges faced by marginalized people and communities?
• What global and local governance approaches are necessary to alleviate the suffering of climate refugees?
• How can the transfer of geoscientific knowledge empower marginalised communities to become more resilient to climate change?

In a world where scientific data underpins critical research, decision‑making, and global collaboration, the stability of the repositories we rely on can no longer be taken for granted. Increasingly frequent disruptions—from natural hazards and climate‑driven events to technical outages, cyberattacks, and funding instability—pose real and immediate challenges to the continuity, integrity, and trustworthiness of research data.

This EGU Town Hall invites the community to come together for an open, interactive discussion on the resilience of data repositories in these turbulent times. Rather than traditional presentations, this format fosters direct engagement among researchers, repository operators, domain scientists, infrastructure providers, and policy experts. Participants are encouraged to share lived experiences, highlight pressing vulnerabilities, and ask difficult questions about the sustainability and governance of the systems we depend on.

Repositories today operate in an increasingly unpredictable environment where disruptions can occur with little warning and may propagate across systems in unexpected ways. How prepared are repositories for sudden or cascading disruptions?

Disruptions rarely arise from a single point of failure. Instead, they often reflect a combination of overlooked or underestimated risks. These may include legacy infrastructure that is brittle under modern workloads, unclear governance structures, inadequate cybersecurity measures, staff shortages, or unstable funding models that prevent long‑term planning. Which technical, organisational, or financial risks are currently underestimated and what level of risk is acceptable?

Many repositories have already faced significant disruptions—whether from natural hazards, hardware failures, cyber incidents, or institutional restructuring. These events offer valuable lessons, not just about what went wrong, but about what made successful recoveries possible. What can we learn from recent incidents, near‑misses, or recovery efforts?

Building resilience often requires additional controls, redundancies, or security measures, yet scientific repositories also strive to remain open, interoperable, and aligned with FAIR principles. This tension creates important questions: How can repositories strengthen their defences without undermining accessibility?

Because repositories are deeply interconnected—technically, organisationally, and through shared standards—resilience cannot be achieved by individual institutions alone. What collective actions can the community take to reduce systemic risk?

This town hall aims to build a shared understanding of the challenges ahead and identify actionable steps to strengthen resilience across the research data ecosystem. Whether you manage a repository, publish data, rely on large-scale infrastructures, or advocate for open science, your perspective is essential.

Join us to help shape the future of robust, trustworthy, and enduring scientific data in an increasingly unstable world.

Motivation:
In a rapidly changing and increasingly uncertain world marked by climate change, urbanisation, geopolitical tensions, and growing pressure on limited natural resources, scenario development and strategic planning have become essential tools for supporting long-term, resilient, and adaptive decision-making. Scenarios help decision-makers explore alternative futures, anticipate risks and trade-offs, and design strategies that remain robust under multiple possible directions.

The Water–Energy–Food–Ecosystem (WEFE) nexus has emerged as a critical framework for addressing interconnected global challenges such as climate change, resource scarcity, environmental degradation, and sustainable development. While the conceptual foundations of the WEFE nexus are well established, its effective operationalization in real-world decision-making remains limited. One major challenge lies in translating diverse methodological approaches including quantitative modeling and scenario analysis to participatory and qualitative tools into actionable strategies that are context-specific and inclusive. Additionally, the integration of ecosystem and /or nature in WEF nexus discussion and meaningful involvement of stakeholders across scales are often underrepresented in nexus applications. This Townhall meeting aims to provide an open and interactive platform to critically reflect on existing scenario planning approaches within the WEFE nexus and to explore pathways for more effective, bottom-up, and stakeholder-driven engagement.


Target Audience
The Townhall is primarily targeted at practitioners, scientist and non-scientist and researchers working on the WEFE nexus, sustainability science, climate change, governance, sustainable development goals, integrated assessment, future research foresight, and other related interdisciplinary fields. It also welcomes sustainability practitioners, policy-oriented researchers, and other enthusiasts interested in nexus thinking and intra-trans-disciplinary approaches. By bringing together participants from diverse disciplinary, geographical, and professional backgrounds, the meeting aims to foster cross-learning across different walks of lifes. The inclusive format is designed to encourage active participation from a wide range of disciplines and regions, promoting learning exchange perspectives, experiences and approach that can strengthen collaboration between science, policy and practice

Expected Outcomes
The expected outcomes of the Townhall Meeting include
i. Develop a shared understanding of the range of scenario planning and methodological approaches currently used in WEFE nexus research.
ii. Highlight the role of stakeholders and the importance of bottom-up, participatory approaches in enhancing the relevance and impact of WEFE nexus assessments.
iii. Identify key gaps and challenges in the operationalization of the WEFE nexus, particularly related to the integration of ecosystem considerations.
iv. A blog post summarizing key discussion points and a policy-oriented paper synthesizing recommendation

Generative AI, large-scale Digital Twins, as well as new satellite missions in Earth observation promise to lead to a significant improvement of our understanding of “System Earth”. At the same time, there is urgent need for transfer of knowledge and higher-level data products for societal stakeholders, to support science-based decision making.
There has been substantial effort put into building a suite of research infrastructures for Earth and environmental sciences within the European research ecosystem. At the same time, various countries have implemented respective national infrastructures, shaping communities on Earth and environmental sciences across boundaries of traditional disciplines.
To really serve the scientific community on the long run, this ecosystem has to provide services on a reliable and sustainable basis. Likewise, further communities have to be approach to foster a systemic understanding of System Earth and allow for developing solutions to grand challenges such as adaptation to climate change or counteracting loss of biodiversity. Such solutions will hard to be derived, if data is hindered in flowing freely between silos build by organizational and/or national boundaries. Furthermore, to really make use of the European AI Factories or lighthouse projects like Destination Earth, a joint data space for Earth and Environmental sciences has to be created making use of the complementary opportunities provided by national as well as transnational initiatives.
Starting at EGU 2025 Data Terra (France) and NFDI4Earth (Germany) have initiated a forum for discussion, bringing representatives of various national and European research infrastructures together and allowing users to join the discussion, presenting their needs and expectations in shaping the European Open Science Cloud for Earth system sciences.

The aim of the meeting is to bring together perspectives of users, data providers, infrastructure providers and policy makers to discuss pathways for integrating existing initiatives into a virtual network of infrastructures serving the Earth and Environmental science community.

In the current geopolitical landscape, the anachronistic view of science as a "neutral space" detached from political and ethical implications, is further exposing its profound limitation. This debate is not new: over seventy years ago, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto reminded the scientific community that technological and theoretical advancements cannot be separated from their consequences on human beings, urging us to 'remember our humanity and forget the rest'. Despite this and a growing body of evidence and epistemologic debates during the last decades, science is still seen as a value-free vacuum within our institutions and for many scholars. However, geoscientists are often drawn to intersect their activities with territories and people affected by conflicts and systemic violations of international law, or with regions scarred by extractive violence and resource exploitation.

This Townhall meeting aims to create a safe and productive space to discuss the transition from a passive "scientific diplomacy" to an active "ethical accountability" within research institutions and international scientific societies.

The goal is to identify collective commitment elements with the help of EGU community, urging researchers to recognize their role, responsibility, and power in the construction of a society that respects human rights and international law. Participants are invited to contribute to the development of a declaration addressing the non-neutrality of science,
the refusal to collaborate with institutions involved in war operations, respect for international law and the construction of solidarity programs for scientific/academic communities in conflict zones.

Drawing inspiration from recent mobilizations across various prestigious scientific journals (such as The Lancet and Nature), academia and research institutions, and aligned with the European Charter for Researchers, we propose a shift in focus from "research integrity" (avoiding fraud) to "research responsibility" (avoiding complicity, fostering our humanity).

We will use collaborative methods (E.g. Brainwriting, Dot Voting, etc, with a strict time control to assure a result)
to maximize opportunities for everyone to share their view on the issues under discussion: scientific practice should be impartial but not neutral, institutional silence in the face of documented atrocities can be interpreted as a form of
connivance.

Making use of the “body or virtual positioning technique”, attendees will address critical
and controversial points raised by the global scientific community, including:

● Beyond Neutrality: Discussing the non-neutrality of science and why the "apolitical" stance is no longer viable when research infrastructure and academic communities are being systematically destroyed (the so-called "scholasticide").
● Ethical Procurement and Due Diligence: Tackling how to implement protocols to prevent institutional complicity with entities involved in conflicts condemned by international bodies and development/exploitation of dual-use technologies.
● The Dilemma of Cooperation and the “conscientious objection”: Addressing how to respond to calls, also coming from dissident scholars within affected regions, for a critical review of cooperation agreements with institutions implicated in violations of humanitarian law.
● Environmental Legacy of War: Using our expertise to monitor and denounce the long-term consequences of conflict, ranging from the contamination of air, soil and water resources to the massive production of toxic debris.