Earth system models (ESM) show diverging estimates of ecosystem carbon (C) uptake which drives persistent uncertainty about future climate and limits the realization of policy mitigation goals. The CONCERTO project aims to strengthen the European research ecosystem by creating an innovative scientific collaborative framework that enhances our understanding, monitoring, and modelling of the terrestrial cycle (CC), and leads to reduced uncertainty and ESM convergence. This framework has three main elements: the exploitation of novel Earth Observation (EO) data, the innovation of process models fed by these data, and Data Assimilation (DA) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques. The consortium includes European experts and institutes active in these areas. CONCERTO will advance the representation of land cover, leaf area index (LAI) and management intensity through new maps of high resolution with layers relevant for the CC. The new management map will enhance the creation of a new biomass production map. Further, CONCERTO will prepare for the ingestion of FLEX data in land surface models (LSM) through DA, and exploit Sentinel-5P/TROPOMI HCHO indicative of biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. As step towards moving away from prior (static) parameterizations, the novel P model will be used to ingest these new data sources. This will enhance understanding of ecosystems responses to climate extremes, fires, and vegetation recovery from them, and the parameterization of LSMs included in ESMs. Novel representations of the underrepresented processes of lateral carbon fluxes through outgassing of CO2 from rivers will be developed. Dedicated seasonal and climate experiments will demonstrate how improved representation of land surface processes benefit the accuracy and trustworthiness of global Earth System simulation. This will lead to better predictability of the influence of land management on the CC and underpin avenues towards carbon neutrality

REST COAST will demonstrate to what extent upscaled coastal restoration can provide a low-carbon adaptation, reducing risks and providing gains in biodiversity for vulnerable coastal ecosystems, such as wetlands or sea grass beds. By overcoming present technical, economic, governance and social barriers to restoration upscaling, REST COAST will develop the large-scale river-coast connectivity and increase the nearshore accommodation space for the resilient delivery of coastal ecosystem services (ESS). The selected ESS (risk reduction, environmental quality and fish provisioning) touch urgent coastal problems such as the erosion/flooding during recent storms or the accelerating coastal habitat degradation that seriously affects fisheries and aquaculture. By enhancing these ESS under present and future climates at 9 Pilots that represent the main EU regional seas (Baltic, Black, North, Atlantic and Mediterranean) we shall increase the commitment of citizens, stakeholders and policy makers for a long-term maintenance of restoration. Such commitment will go together with a transformation of governance and financial structures, supported by evidence-based results on restoration benefits for the welfare of coastal societies and assets. This transformation will build upon the results from hands-on restoration at the Pilots, steered by the multidisciplinary project advances. Combining new techniques, risk assessments, innovative financial/governance arrangements and homogeneous metrics for ESS and biodiversity, REST-COAST will develop a systemic approach to coastal restoration based on a scalable coastal adaptation plan. The plan will underpin a transformative change in governance and policies, proving the importance of the coastal dimension in the EU Green Deal for adaptation/mitigation under climate change. The proposed adaptation will facilitate replicating large scale restoration and introducing coastal ESS into national and international policies.

Progress in understanding, managing and securing current and future ecosystem functions and services is challenged by fragmented and dispersed ecosystem research, operated using narrow disciplinary perspectives that prevent a holistic understanding of complex eco- and socio-ecological systems. The emerging European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological systems Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) was evaluated by the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) as having high potential for closing this gap in the European RI landscape. The primary objective of eLTER PLUS is to open and expand the research capacities and impact of eLTER by engaging current and new users and developing the operations of cross- and transdisciplinary research, exemplified in eLTER Site and Platform design and the RI’s Standard Observation framework. eLTER PLUS will execute a performance test of the emerging RI and assess and strengthen its operations in real time. It will further advance community building and provisioning of services as pursued by the H2020-funded eLTER INFRAIA Starting Community project and related projects. Its focus is on making intensive use of 35 selected sites and platforms in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal ecosystems, combined with observational data from an additional 50 sites, for studying ecosystem and socio-ecological responses to globally-relevant environmental challenges in terms of ecosystem integrity and ecosystem services. Its Whole-Systems approach will derive meaningful scientific and policy-relevant information via co-designed, transdisciplinary research in collaboration with diverse stakeholders at local, regional and EU-scales. Concerted actions also focus on collaboration with peer RIs to maximize synergies, increase efficiencies and catalyze holistic understanding of ecosystem function, and on development of virtual laboratories where in-situ site data are linked with other data sources, e.g. Copernicus.

AGINFRA+ addresses the challenge of supporting user-driven design and prototyping of innovative e-infrastructure services and applications. It particularly tries to meet the needs of the scientific and technological communities that work on the multi-disciplinary and multi-domain problems related to agriculture and food. It will use, adapt and evolve existing open e-infrastructure resources and services (AGINFRA, OpenAIRE, EGI, EUDAT, D4Science), in order to demonstrate how fast prototyping and development of innovative data- and computing-intensive applications can take place. AGINFRA+ will evolve and develop further the resources and services of the AGINFRA research data e-infrastructure, which has been developed in the context of the FP7 agINFRA project and is now being operated and evolved by key stakeholders in agriculture and food (including Agroknow, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, INRA, Wageningen UR, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and others).

Coast-Scapes (rethinking COASTal landSCAPES with climate-resilient interventions: systemic land-to-sea solutions) proposes to rethink land-coast-sea systems under climate change for enhanced resilience and biodiversity gains. We shall co-design systemic resilience solutions for coastal landscapes using transdisciplinary indicators, early and climatic warnings, business models and knowledge-based maintenance to reduce climatic risks and improve land to sea environments. We propose nature-based-solutions (NbS) suited to a broad range of coastal archetypes, governance, climates and resilience deficits, sequenced along resilience-through-adaptation pathways. Such solutions, supported by governance transformation and cross-sectoral engagement, will be applied by regions and communities empowered by an unprecedented combination of technical tools, financial models and social commitment. Coast-Scapes will promote NbS for a climatic resilience compatible with biodiversity gains and existing infrastructure constraints, seeking a reduced environmental footprint under natural resources that are scarce in quantity and quality. Social and technical innovation, associated to a governance shift, will make systemic resilience operational and fill the implementation gap at a pace commensurate with climate change acceleration. The selected Core Pilot regions/communities feature climate sensitive natural/human assets, controlled by land-coast-sea interactions and acting as large-scale demonstrators of scalable resilience plans for replication and export. These plans aggregate Science, Policy, Industry, Society and Environment actors with administrations responsible for local implementation, organised as resilience platforms and linked in a Regions and Communities Board. Resilience solutions will be monitored/maintained/marketed with the project, new standards and business models, for a resilience build up commensurate with unfavourable climate/human stressors.