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Abstract:
Sustainability-oriented societal transformations, such as to our energy systems, are major challenges to carry out in ways that preserve economic stability and do not lead to increased conflict on our planet. Finding solutions to meet these challenges requires geoscientific expertise contributing to several Sustainable Development Goals. This includes the factors controlling climate change and the options for mitigation and adaptation (SDG13), how to ensure safe and affordable water supplies (SDG6), and how to establish new energy provision concepts (SDG7) that no longer depend on fossil fuels. Addressing SDG 6 and 7 also lays the foundation for meeting for example SDG11: Sustainable cities and communities or SDG9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure. Sustainable, low-carbon energy systems can use georesources such as geothermal energy, but also need specific georesources to build the renewable energy infrastructure. Wind mills, solar panels and our new digital technologies require an unprecedented amount of metals and many other raw materials. Future supplies of these need to come from diversified sources and must be environmentally sustainable. Geosciences can support achieving the SDGs by (1) finding the georesources required for a sustainable, high-tech society, (2) safely using the subsurface to produce water, metals and energy or store energy vectors; and (3) connecting the subsurface opportunities to the above surface needs. For these aspects new exploration technologies and integration methods for observations need to be combined with next generation 4D simulation methods to build digital twins fit to answer “what if” questions about georesources in changing societies on a dynamic Earth.
