Pioneering Research at the School of Sustainability

Decreasing costs of distributed generation and storage, alongside increasing network charges, provide consumers with a growing incentive to defect from the main grid. On a large scale, this may lead to price inflation, hindrance of the energy transition, and even a “death spiral” – a domino effect of disconnections. Here, we develop a game-theoretic framework that demonstrates how conflicting interests among consumers — an aspect that previous studies overlooked — may lead to complex dynamics of grid defection. Our results reveal that although individual consumers benefit from staying connected at the distribution level, the defection of small energy communities from the grid may lead to the defection of larger communities. We also demonstrate that centralized design approaches may lead to inefficient outcomes, e.g., redundant grid expansions, because of the inherent inability to predict potential defections. However, we indicate how, by properly incorporating defection considerations into the grid’s design, social welfare can be improved.

Meeting net-zero goals requires behavioral change. The middle-out perspective helps identify middle actors who can address barriers to consistent low-carbon lifestyles. Congregations, building professionals, and schools are examples of middle actors that can foster low-carbon living from the middle out by altering values and social norms and influencing government policies.

This winter exceptionally high energy prices are forcing many householders and businesses in Europe to change the way they use energy. It is important to learn how their energy use changes over a short period of time, the effects of government actions, which policies work and which fail, and what trade-offs emerge. The digital society offers unique opportunities to collect quantitative and qualitative data and to learn about these changes while they happen. However, researchers are not used to planning and executing rapid research. We propose a research agenda and some guidelines and thoughts on practical aspects of executing research in a hurry. The frequency of energy shortages due to extreme weather events is likely to increase. Therefore, lessons from good research on coping strategies, and on the economic, social, and environmental implications of this are vital for better policymaking. As researchers, we should try to follow Winston Churchill's advice ‘never to waste a good crisis’.

This paper considers bottled water with respect to the three pillars of sustainability: economic viability, environmental impacts, and social equity. Per-capita consumption of bottled water has been growing steadily and is the fastest-growing sector of the packaged beverages industry, with expected annual growth of 10% until 2026. Most bottled water is sold in PET containers, and various impacts are evident along all phases of the product lifecycle. This paper reviews market trends and forecasts, lifecycle estimates of energy consumption, associated air pollution and GHG emissions, water footprint, and waste generation. Concerns around human and ecosystem health due to pollution, land use changes, storage conditions, microplastics, and leaching from containers are described, as well as local environmental benefits from companies’ efforts to preserve the quality of their source water. Growing awareness of the cumulative negative impacts of bottled water have pushed the industry to voluntarily improve its performance. Yet, as growth continues, further actions should focus on stricter regulation and on the provision of more sustainable, affordable, available, and trusted alternatives. Gaps remain in knowledge of the effects of bottled water over its full life cycle.

Energy transitions are at the top of global agendas in response to the growing challenges of climate change and international conflict, with the EU positioning itself as playing a pivotal role in addressing climate risks and sustainability imperatives. European energy transition policies identify ‘smart consumption’ as a key element of these efforts, which have previously been explored from a predominantly technical perspective thus often failing to identify or address fundamental interlinkages with social systems and consequences. This paper aims to contribute to interdisciplinary energy research by analysing a forward looking ‘Horizon Scan’ research agenda for smart consumption, driven by the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). Reflecting on an extensive systematic Delphi Method exercise surveying over 70 SSH scholars from various institutional settings across Europe, we highlight what SSH scholars see as future directions for smart consumption research. Building from seven thematic areas (under which are grouped 100 SSH research questions), the study identifies three key ‘shifts’ this new smart research agenda represents, when compared to previous agendas: (1) From technological inevitability to political choice, highlighting the need for a wider political critique, with the potential to open up discussions of the instrumentalisation of smart research; (2) From narrow representation to diverse inclusion, moving beyond the shortcomings of current discourses for engaging marginalised communities; and (3) From individual consumers to interconnected citizens, reframing smart consumption to offer a broader model of social change and governance. Social Sciences and Humanities scholarship is essential to address these shifts in meaningful (rather than tokenistic) ways. This agenda and the shifts it embodies represent key tools to enable better interdisciplinary working between SSH and teams from the technical and natural sciences.

Future foods, such as microalgae, mycoprotein and mealworm, have been suggested as nutritious and sustainable dietary options. We consider one of the most profound, yet neglected, benefits of future foods farming systems—their potential to provide essential nutrition in the face of systemic disturbances—and discuss major barriers to realizing this prospect.

Global agriculture is poised to benefit from the rapid advance and diffusion of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. AI in agriculture could improve crop management and agricultural productivity through plant phenotyping, rapid diagnosis of plant disease, efficient application of agrochemicals and assistance for growers with location-relevant agronomic advice. However, the ramifications of machine learning (ML) models, expert systems and autonomous machines for farms, farmers and food security are poorly understood and under-appreciated. We consider systemic risk factors of AI in agriculture. Namely, we review risks relating to interoperability, reliability and relevance of agricultural data, unintended socio-ecological consequences resulting from ML models optimized for yields, and safety and security concerns associated with deployment of ML platforms at scale.

Digital twins can transform agricultural production systems and supply chains, curbing greenhouse gas emissions, food waste and malnutrition. However, the potential of these advanced virtualization technologies is yet to be realized. Here, we consider the promise of digital twins across six typical agrifood supply chain steps and emphasize key implementation barriers.

Several factors have traditionally hampered the effectiveness of agricultural extension services, including limited institutional capacity and reach. Here we assess the potential of large language models (LLMs), specifically Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), to transform agricultural extension. We focus on the ability of LLMs to simplify scientific knowledge and provide personalized, location-specific and data-driven agricultural recommendations. We emphasize shortcomings of this technology, informed by real-life testing of GPT to generate technical advice for Nigerian cassava farmers. To ensure a safe and responsible dissemination of LLM functionality across farming worldwide, we propose an idealized LLM design process with human experts in the loop.

Africa is disproportionately exposed to catastrophic climate, hydrological and meteorological risks. Well-funded weather monitoring, nowcasting and early-warning systems must become a priority.

Could computer simulation models drive our ambitions to sustainability in urban and non-urban environments? Digital twins, defined here as real-time, virtual replicas of physical and biological entities, may do just that. However, despite their touted potential, digital twins have not been examined critically in urban sustainability paradigms—not least in the Sustainable Development Goals framework. Accordingly, we examine their benefits in promoting the Sustainable Development Goals. Then, we discuss critical limitations when modelling socio-technical and socio-ecological systems and go on to discuss measures to treat these limitations and design inclusive, reliable and responsible computer simulations for achieving sustainable development.

Globalisation supports the clustering of critical infrastructure systems, sometimes in proximity to lower-magnitude (VEI 3–6) volcanic centres. In this emerging risk landscape, moderate volcanic eruptions might have cascading, catastrophic effects. Risk assessments ought to be considered in this light.

We report on atmospheric electrical measurements conducted at the Wise Observatory in Mitzpe-Ramon, Israel (30°35′N, 34°45′E) during a large dust storm that occurred over the Eastern Mediterranean region on 10–11 February 2015. The dust was transported from the Sahara, Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula ahead of an approaching Cyprus low. Satellite images show the dust plume covering the Negev desert and Southern Israel and moving north. The concentrations of PM10 particles measured by the air-quality monitoring network of the Israeli Ministry of the Environment in Beer-Sheba reached values > 450 μg m− 3 and the AOT from the AERONET station in Sde-Boker was 1.5 on February 10th. The gradual intensification of the event reached peak concentrations on February 11th of over 1200 μg m− 3 and an AOT of 1.8. Continuous measurements of the fair weather vertical electric field (Ez) and vertical current density (Jz) were conducted at the Wise Observatory with 1 minute temporal resolution. Meteorological data was also recorded at the site. As the dust was advected over the observatory, very large fluctuations in the electrical parameters were registered. From the onset of the dust storm, the Ez values changed between + 1000 and + 8000 V m− 1 while the current density fluctuated between − 10 pA m2 and + 20 pA m2, both on time-scales of a few minutes. These values are significant departures from the average fair-weather values measured at the site, which are ~− 200 V m− 1 and ~ 2 pA m2. The disturbed episodes lasted for several hours on February 10th and the 11th and coincided with local meteorological conditions related to the wind speed and direction, which carried large amounts of dust particles over our observation station. We interpret the rapid changes as caused by the transport of electrically charged dust, carrying an excess of negative charge at lower altitudes

This work evaluates two numerical warning indicators of severe weather. These indicators, the MKI and RDI indices, were developed within the framework of the EU-funded FLASH project which studies flash flood events in the Mediterranean Basin. The MKI (Modified K-Index) is a modification of the K-Index, which expresses probability of lightning activity, and the RDI (Rain Dynamical Index) is the integrated upward moisture flux. The indices were tested on 59 episodes which occurred during nine rainstorms in Israel, Greece, Spain, Italy, and Cyprus. The data for calculation of the indices included rain cell identification derived from microwave radiometer imagery of polar orbiting NOAA satellites, rain RADAR data, and lightning activity from the international ZEUS detection system. Atmospheric data with 0.5° × 0.5° spatial resolution and 6-h time resolution were used for the calculation and the display of the two indices. The indices were tested by calculating the spatially correlating locations with high index values and actual locations of intense rain and intense lightning. The RDI detected both event types: rain and lightning, with a statistically significant success rate and a low rate of false results. The MKI was successful in indicating intense lightning activity, but the rate of correct indications was not statistically significant and there was a high rate of false indications. The results suggest that the RDI computed with output of weather prediction models is a potentially good predictor of torrential rain and therefore can predict flash floods caused by such rain in the Mediterranean region.

Ground-based measurements of the vertical electric field (Ez or potential gradient) during fair weather days in the Negev desert, southern Israel are presented for the period June 2013-July 2015. We show results of the diurnal variation of Ez on seasonal and annual time scales, and make comparisons with the well-known Carnegie curve. We show a positive correlation between the diurnal Ez values and the number of global thunderstorm clusters on the same days. However, the diurnal Ez curves observed in the Negev desert show a local morning peak (8–10 UT) that is missing from the Carnegie Curve, but observed in other land-based Ez data from around the world. The morning peak is assumed to be a local effect and shown to correlate with a peak in the local aerosol loading in the lower atmosphere due to increase in turbulence and mixing caused by solar heating in the morning hours.

The ILAN-ES (Imaging of Lightning And Nocturnal Emissions from Space) experiment was conducted by Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe in April 2022 as part of the Axiom Space company AX-1 private mission to the International Space Station, in the framework of Rakia, a set of experiments selected for flight by the Ramon Foundation and the Israeli Space Agency. The mission objective was to manually record lightning and transient luminous events from the Copula window in the ISS, based on preliminary thunderstorm forecasts uploaded to the crew 24-36 hours in advance. A Nikon D6 camera with a 50 mm lens was used, in a video mode of 60 frames per second. During the 15-day mission, 82 different targets were uploaded to the ISS of which 20 were imaged by the astronauts, yielding a total harvest of 45 TLEs: sprites, Elves and Blue Corona Discharges. The methodology and execution by the ISS astronauts are described and recommendations for future observations by on-board human-operated instruments on the ISS are given.

We report on ground-based measurements of the atmospheric electric field (Ez= -Potential Gradient (PG)) and current density (Jz) that were conducted at two locations in Israel. One is the Emilio Segre cosmic ray station located on Mt. Hermon (34.45 N, 2020 m AMSL) located in northern Israel near the Syrian-Lebanon border and at the other at the Wise astronomical observatory in the Negev desert highland plateau of southern Israel (31.18 N, 870 m AMSL). We searched for possible effects of strong, short-term solar events on the potential gradient and the vertical current density, as disruption to the Global Electric Circuit are often observed following strong solar events. The first case study (St. Patrick Day, 17 March 2015) was classified as the strongest event of 2015. The second case study (8 Sep 2017) was categorized as the strongest event of 2017 and one of the twenty strongest events on record to date. The results show that the electrical parameters measured at ground level at both stations were not affected during the two massive proton events and the ensuing geomagnetic storms. The magnetospheric shielding in lower latitudes is strong enough to shield against flux of energetic particles from solar events, obscuring any impact that may be noticeable above the local daily variations induced by local meteorological conditions (aerosol concentrations, clouds, high humidity, and wind speed) which were investigated as well.

Flash floods are considered as a significant natural hazard in the Eastern Mediterranean region, which is characterized by arid and semi-arid conditions. Predicting when and where extreme
flash flooding is likely to occur is a major challenge in the effort to prevent natural disaster loss. Here, we present new results to improve flash flood predictions achieved by a previous work, presented by Ziskin and Reuveni (2022), which investigated the use of precipitable water vapor (PWV) data from ground-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers, along with surface pressure measurements, to predict flash floods in an arid region of the Eastern Mediterranean (EM). Ziskin and Reuveni (2022) trained three machine learning (ML) models, applied with multiple unique flash flood events, in order to perform a binary classification task. In our current study, we extend Ziskin and Reuveni (2022) work by integrating nearby lightning data as a new dataset feature. Incorporating this feature is motivated by heavy rainfall observation, which can lead to flood events, and are often accompanied by an increase in nearby lightning activity. Our experimental results show that adding a 24-hour of nearby lightning activity data, improves the precision score significantly. These encouraging results indicate that it is better to augment the current flash flood warning systems with both nearby lightning data and a near real-time GNSS ground-based data driven approach as demonstrated in this work. Thus, contributing to more accurate real-time flash flood predictions by integrating lightning data into machine learning models.

The Gulf of Aqaba and its coral reefs are of great importance to Israel. This unique ecosystem is rich and diverse, but also threatened by multiple drivers, such as climate change, rising water temperature, declining seawater acidity, nutrients enrichment from anthropogenic sources, disaster risk events or pollution. These threats are even more significant since a growing part of the local population depends on tourism as livelihood.

The overarching goal of this project is to map, quantify and estimate the effects of climate change on the provision of ecosystem services in the Gulf of Aqaba. Researchers from complementary disciplines will collect marine and terrestrial ecological and biological data, through different methods (e.g. socio-ecological assessments, mapping, economic valuation), to analyze the effects of climate change and flood-driven river flows on the Gulf’s marine ecosystems and the services they provide. This study will provide for the first time, an ecosystem services assessment of the Gulf of Aqaba, while focusing on the ecological, hydrological and economic impact of climate change on these services. This project will provide decision makers with accessible and synthesized data, scenarios analyses and operational tools to help them understand, plan, mitigate and adapt to the impact of climate change on the various sectors in Eilat, especially the tourism sector.

EcoFuture will develop WEFE Nexus best-practice recommendations for resource management in the Jordan valley. It will seek to identify and quantify the adaptation challenges to water, food and energy security and to the environment, and will propose an adaptation plan, based on existing technologies and adaptation solutions including centralised and decentralized wastewater treatment, smart agriculture in acclimatized greenhouses, agri-PV and precise irrigation - solar desalination - renewable energy. The project will account the social priorities of the three involved countries, and use techno-economic models to optimize the techno-economic performance of the proposed adaptation plan. It will use innovative socio-economic models in to verify maximum impact on the lives of the people in the region, and will perform tests at existing WEFE demonstration sites in order to validate the inputs to the various models, and thus propose best-availably methodologies to extent the applicability of the results of the Jordan Valley to other regions and to other Mediterranean countries through the development of versatile key performance indicators for WEFE via extensive dissemination through a broader community of practice.

Coastal regions provide some of the most productive and biodiverse environments with an important and often underappreciated Carbon storage potential, combined with the highest densities of population, assets and cultural heritage in the world. Rapidly developing and changing, these socially, economically and environmentally important areas are experiencing progressive degradation and escalating risks, further exacerbated by climate change. Coastal management is often based on single-sided use of resources proven unsustainable in the long term as the associated environmental pressures remain unresolved. Operating within a limited social and technical consensus and a fragmented policy framework, measures often favour short term interventions leading to poor investment decisions. This, combined with increasing climate and human pressures and decreasing natural capital, results in declining biodiversity and ecosystem services, leading to growing costs and a significant Carbon footprint.

The research goals are: Improve coastal restoration practice and techniques through new hands-on restoration projects within the REST-COAST Pilots, supported by Restoration Platforms to demonstrate and scale-up measures for wider use. Generate new tools and data to assess risk reduction at different climate change levels to provide consistent risk estimates across time scales and lower financial, social and political barriers to large scale restoration. Design innovative financial arrangements and bankable business plans that support restoration upscaling by introducing co-financing options and long-term plans based on strategic investment pathways. Develop a scalable plan for coastal adaptation through large scale restoration based on trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity and socio-economic development, aiming for financially viable solutions incorporating climate-resilient ecosystem services. Co-design innovative governance arrangements and policies to overcome present barriers to large scale restoration and promote transformative changes in governance at all levels: from local to national and EU. Support the Green Deal social transformation and engagement through a new Digital Platform dashboard, a Carbon Footprint Counter and a new App and Video game focusing on decarbonisation of coastal adaptation. Engage with project stakeholders, EU Green Deal officers and international organisations to transfer REST-COAST restoration tools, data and expertise and demo material and ensure their uptake and exploitation.