Towards An Interdisciplinary Approach In Earth System Science

This book describes the latest advances at the Helmholtz “Earth System Science Research School” where scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, the University of Bremen, and the Jacobs University are involved in research. One of the greatest challenges is understanding ongoing environmental changes. The longer the time scale the more components of the Earth system are involved, e.g. interannual and decadal variations are related to the coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice system, whereas longer variations like glacial-interglacial or Cenozoic transitions involve the carbon cycle, ice sheets and gateways. In order to get deep insights into Earth system science, observations, remote sensing, past environmental data, as well as modeling need to be integrated. These different approaches are traditionally taught in separated disciplines at bachelor and master levels. It is, therefore, necessary to bring these disciplines together in PhD programs.

Earth system science is traditionally split into various disciplines (Geology, Physics, Meteorology, Oceanography, Biology etc.) and several sub-disciplines. Overall, the diversity of expertise provides a solid base for interdisciplinary research. However, gaining holistic insights into the Earth system requires the integration of observations, paleoclimate data, analysis tools and modeling. These different approaches of Earth system science are rooted in various disciplines that cut across a broad range of timescales. It is, therefore, necessary to link these disciplines at a relatively early stage in PhD programs. The linking of ‘data and modeling’, as it is the special emphasis in our graduate school, enables graduate students from a variety of disciplines to cooperate and exchange views on the common theme of Earth system science, which leads to a better understanding of processes within a global context.

Interdisciplinary Teaching about the Earth and Environment for a Sustainable Future presents the outcomes of the InTeGrate project, a community effort funded by the National Science Foundation to improve Earth literacy and build a workforce prepared to tackle environmental and resource issues. The InTeGrate community is built around the shared goal of supporting interdisciplinary learning about Earth across the undergraduate curriculum, focusing on the grand challenges facing society and the important role that the geosciences play in addressing these grand challenges. The chapters in this book explicitly illustrate the intimate relationship between geoscience and sustainability that is often opaque to students. The authors of these chapters are faculty members, administrators, program directors, and researchers from institutions across the country who have collectively envisioned, implemented, and evaluated effective change in their classrooms, programs, institutions, and beyond. This book provides guidance to anyone interested in implementing change—on scales ranging from a single course to an entire program—by infusing sustainability across the curriculum, broadening access to Earth and environmental sciences, and assessing the impacts of those changes.

Fire plays a key role in Earth system processes. Wildfires influence the carbon cycle and the nutrient balance of our planet, and may even play a role in regulating the oxygen content of our atmosphere. The evolutionary history of plants has been intimately tied to fire and this in part explains the distribution of our ecosystems and their ability to withstand the effects of natural fires today. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System brings together the various subdisciplines within fire science to provide a synthesis of our understanding of the role of wildfire in the Earth system. The book shows how knowledge of fire phenomena and the nature of combustion of natural fuels can be used to understand modern wildfires, interpret fire events in the geological record and to understand the role of fire in a variety of Earth system processes. By bringing together chapters written by leading international researchers from a range of geological, environmental, chemical and engineering disciplines, the book will stimulate the exchange of ideas and knowledge across these subject areas. Fire Phenomena and the Earth System provides a truly interdisciplinary guide that can inform us about Earth’s past, present and beyond. Readership: Advanced students and researchers across a wide range of earth, environmental and life sciences, including biogeochemistry, paleoclimatology, atmospheric science, palaeontology and paleoecology, combustion science, ecology and forestry.

Environmental issues are inherently interdisciplinary, and environmental academic programs increasingly use an interdisciplinary approach. This timely book presents a core framework for conducting high quality interdisciplinary research. It focuses on the opportunities rather than the challenges of interdisciplinary work and is written for those doing interdisciplinary work (rather than those studying it). It is designed to facilitate high quality interdisciplinary work and the author uses illustrative examples from student work and papers published in the environmental literature. This book's lucid, problem-solving approach is framed in an accessible easy-to-read style and will be indispensable for anyone embarking on a research project involving interdisciplinary collaboration. Readership: graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and researchers involved in the interface between human and natural environmental systems

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has played a key role over the past several decades in advancing understanding of Earth's systems by funding research on atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, geologic, polar, ecosystem, social, and engineering-related processes. Today, however, those systems are being driven like never before by human technologies and activities. Our understanding has struggled to keep pace with the rapidity and magnitude of human-driven changes, their impacts on human and ecosystem sustainability and resilience, and the effectiveness of different pathways to address those challenges. Given the urgency of understanding human-driven changes, NSF will need to sustain and expand its efforts to achieve greater impact. The time is ripe to create a next-generation Earth systems science initiative that emphasizes research on complex interconnections and feedbacks between natural and social processes. This will require NSF to place an increased emphasis on research inspired by real-world problems while maintaining their strong legacy of curiosity driven research across many disciplines ? as well as enhance the participation of social, engineering, and data scientists, and strengthen efforts to include diverse perspectives in research.

This volume builds on an international workshop held in 2019, inspired by James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia - Why the Earth Is Fighting Back, and How We Can Still Save Humanity". It, therefore, understands the Gaia concept as an umbrella term for the living world that planet Earth is hosting for nearly 4 billion years. Humankind has intervened in this ecosystem since its emergence on the planet about 2.5 million years ago, often with painful consequences for itself. In its reactions, the Earth system follows only the laws of nature. Consequently, humanity needs to develop strategies for a sustainable Earth system. This volume presents a unique trans- and interdisciplinary variety of approaches to this challenge, offering philosophical considerations as well as practical medical research. It addresses a broad knowledgeable and general audience in environmental management, public administration, and higher education alike.

Since this new science is of an unprecedented interdisciplinary nature, the book does not merely take stock of its numerous ingredients, but also delivers their multifaceted integration. The resulting master paradigm - the co-evolution of nature and anthroposphere within a geo-cybernetic continuum of processes - is based on a structured manifold of partial paradigms with their specific ranges. Most importantly, this serves the scientific foundation of a meaningful, safe and efficient environment and development management for solving the most burning questions concerning humankind and its natural environment. The more concrete elucidation of the natural and human dimensions, as well as various attempts and instruments of integration are represented in the different parts of the book, while the didactic quality is heightened by many allegoric illustrations.

The built environment is witnessing a worldwide concern followed by intensive consideration of its environmental impacts on the one hand and influence on public health and wellbeing on the other. Respecting both priorities mentioned above, the trends in current design tend to be in line with multiple dimensions of sustainability. Next to its occurrence in scientific research and practice, the topic of sustainable design is ever more emerging within the courses at universities, whereby the educational approaches can be beneficial if interrelated to different scientific or expert disciplines. As universities are recognized as complex organizations inevitably evolving over a long period of time period and responding to changes in society and environment, attempts to improve the efficiency of academic teaching have been intensively introduced also in the study programs of the University of Maribor, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Architecture (UM FGPA) through implementation of various activities related to development of innovative approaches towards education on sustainable design of built environment. The publication presents the interdisciplinary approach to the academic education on sustainable building design through integration of different activities. In addition to basic educational courses, the transfer of latest research findings, implementation of practical student workshops, development projects and various activities aiming at integration of different knowledge transfers makes the level of academic teaching more active and efficient. The book consists of six chapters. The first chapter describes the general aspect of the integrative approach to education on sustainable built environment through the experience of the interdisciplinary course. Chapter 2 introduces a comprehensive set of urban design criteria for creating residential neighbourhoods and emphasizes the role of high-quality open space and green areas, which significantly contributes to liveability. Chapter 3 deals with sustainable transport in connection with the living environment, and emphasises the interdisciplinary approach. Chapter 4 presents the inclusion of energy-efficient building design with the integrated use of new digital technologies, such as building information and energy modelling. Chapter 5 describes the main types of timber structural systems and presents a sustainable design perspective of contemporary prefabricated timber-glass buildings with further development of multi-storey prefabricated timber buildings with enlarged glazing areas. The last chapter is prepared as a graphic summary of interdisciplinary workshop projects which demonstrate the complexity of design and the respect for diverse interdisciplinary principles of sustainable planning.