InnoPool projects
The innovation pool for the research field Earth and Environment serves to strengthen cooperation between the centers, promote new innovative ideas in 3-year projects, support initiatives by young scientists and react flexibly to new, socially relevant topics in research campaigns.
SCENIC - Storyline scenarios of extreme weather, climate, and environmental events along with their impacts in a warmer world
The main goal of the project is to develop and apply a novel storyline approach to examine how extreme events would unfold in different climates, thereby complementing classical climate scenario methods. Furthermore, novel ways of communicating uncertain are enabled by differentiating between dynamic (high uncertainty) and thermodynamic drivers of change. The results make climate change and its impacts much more tangible, thus aiding adaptation and mitigation efforts.
Contact: Dr. Helge Goessling (AWI)
High CO2 - Metabolic responses and bioeconomic opportunities
The main goals of the project are to study physiological adaptation of microbial communities and individual microbes to very high CO2 concentrations and explore microbial utilization of CO2 for establishing CO2-based bioeconomic value chains. We will use existing drill core samples from the Eger Rift (ER, terrestrial site, Czech Republic) and samples from the Grimsey Hydrothermal Field (GHF, marine site, north of Iceland) – two sites exhibiting extreme levels of the greenhouse gas CO2. As the composition of microbial communities depends on the available substrates to generate energy and biomass, the study of the “background” mineralogy is also required to understand complex interactions of biological and geochemical processes to get a comprehensive picture of the coupling between biosphere and geosphere and assess the potential of biological and mineral resources.
Contact: Dr. Jens Kallmeyer (GFZ)
P-LEACH - Impacts on ecosystem functions and human health by environmental plastics and associated chemicals
P-LEACH assesses the complexity of plastic-associated chemicals and their impact on ecosystem functions and human health. Plastics form a new habitat for colonization (“plastisphere”) within ecosystems, and their weathering leads to fragmentation and leaching of chemicals, including harmful additives (e.g. plasticizers, bisphenols, metals). The multidisciplinary consortium is jointly characterizing these chemicals and their synergistic effects on ecosystem functions with a focus on microbial geochemical cycles in realistic aquatic environments along the land-coast-ocean continuum and at hot spots (German Bight, North Atlantic and North Pacific Gyre). P-LEACH also addresses human health effects using human cell lines, simulated gastrointestinal passage and human tissue.
Contact: Dr. Annika Jahnke(UFZ) | Dr. Gunnar Gerdts (AWI)
CASCO - Risk workflow for cascading and compounding hazards in coastal urban areas
In CASCO we are developing integrated methods and models for multi-hazard risk assessment of coastal urban areas, subject to extreme compounding and/or cascading geophysical and climatic events. Our aim is to define solid workflows that simulate the full risk chain, from geophysical and climatic hazards to impacts on the population and the built environment. Our case-study scenarios are set in Sicily, Italy, around Mt. Etna and the Straits of Messina.
Contakt: Dr. Cecilia Nievas (GFZ)