Spoke 4 – VS4: Environmental degradation

The aim of Spoke VS4 is to explore and develop integrated approaches to challenge multiscale environmental degradation focusing on pollution, wildfires, coastal and land degradation processes, also considering climate change scenarios. This spoke aims to achieve a better understanding of the processes and factors responsible for environmental degradation, its time dynamic and its spatio-temporal distribution. This will include dynamic mapping, development and application of new and smart methodologies for monitoring, assessing, forecasting, prevention and mitigation of the effects of environmental degradation, as well as the evaluation of resilience and adaptation of different ecosystems. The spoke will cover terrestrial, coastal and marine environments (including hyporheic regions), with a special focus on ecotoxicology. It will develop integrated multi-risk approaches that will be tailored to specific contexts (urban/metropolitan; industrial, natural, agricultural, coastal and marine areas) under climate change scenarios, favouring the input/output exchange protocol with the vertical (VS1), transversal Spokes (TS1, TS2) and diagonal (DS) Spokes.