Environmental Research Infrastructures are key to provide systematic and coherent datasets needed for research addressing climate, natural resources, health, food security, biodiversity, and sustainable use of the marine, freshwater and soils. However, they do not only cater to the scientific community but support the environmental monitoring activities conducted by agencies across Europe and serve as test-beds for development of technology and methodology.

Apart from being crucial for a systematic understanding of the environment, they are well positioned to give hard facts on the efficiency of the European Union and its Member States (MS) mitigation and adaptation actions. ESFRI have identified several Research Infrastructures that have become fundamental data providers as well as forefront exploratory research facilities addressing a multitude of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Unions ambitious climate agenda as well as its green and blue growth initiatives.

Environmental research as a scientific domain focuses on understanding how the Earth system works at various spatial and temporal scales. Environmental research requires comprehensive observations integrated with relevant experimental and modelling approaches which are essential for understanding and predicting the Earth’s environmental system functions. A federated approach to IT resources and e-science facilities is also necessary together with liable data policies compliant with the FAIR principle. Environmental sciences are traditionally divided into four research spheres – GEOSPHERE, ATMOSPHERE, HYDROSPHERE and BIOSPHERE – forming a network of mutual interdependences. Each of the traditional areas of environmental research has its specificity as to the role in the natural system as well as research methods. Moreover, the assessment of interlinks between these ‘spheres’ also requires specific approaches. The role of Mankind becomes critical and drives most research priorities because it is twofold, being at the same time an agent affecting the Earth’s system and a victim of its impact.

Environmental pressures play an important role in the most critical global challenges that humanity faces today (including those related to sustainable energy and food production, water supply, human health and well-being). The mitigation and adaptation to climate change, prevention of environmental pollution, conservation and sustainable use of key natural resources and ecosystem services are vital. Modern society is progressively vulnerable to the increased frequency of natural hazards (such as extreme weather, earthquakes, floods, hunger due to failed harvests or pandemic disease outbreaks) causing loss of life and having an enormous impact on society, and environmental catastrophes can shutter societal security and cause migration with related security problems.

This was reflected in latest strategic documents, including the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2015)Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations (2015)
https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda, the European Green Deal (2019)A European Green Deal. European Commission (2019)
https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en, United in Science (2020)United in Science 2020. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) (2020)
https://public.wmo.int/en/resources/united_in_science and Making Peace with Nature (2021)Making Peace with Nature. UN Environment Programme (2021)
https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature , as well as national priorities of the EU Member States. Out of 17 Sustainable Development Goals calling for action to protect the planet and ensure future prosperity, three (SDG13 Climate action, SDG14 Life under water, SDG15 Life on land) are directly focused on sustainable management of natural resources while many others (e.g. SDG6 Clean water and sanitation, SDG7 Affordable and clean energy) strongly depend on them. Even the most generic goals (SDG1 No poverty, SDG2 Zero hunger, SDG3 Good health and well-being, SDG11 Sustainable cities and communities, SDG12 Responsible consumption and production) cannot be achieved without a sustainable management of our environment. To reach the SDGs, the EU introduced the Green Deal as a new European growth strategy towards a prosperous society with a resource-efficient economy and no net emissions of greenhouse gases. To support achievement of these political goals, the new European research and innovation programme, Horizon Europe, was launched with a strong focus on Global challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness, together with five clearly defined research and innovation Mission areas.

The environmental RIs already play an important role in this process and support the scientific community and the society at large by:

1. acting as centres of frontier research on grand environmental challenges and focal points for education and training of researchers contributing significantly to the European skills base and future leaders in the concepts of life and a sustainable planet;
2. generating coherent, comparable, and sustained time-series of key environmental variables;
3. providing accurate large datasets and new solutions (artificial intelligence) to share these data for increased scientific and technical knowledge that underpin the construction of tools supporting decision making and development of efficient regulations and policies;
4. delivering essential data for more reliable communication to the public on events such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, poor air quality and extreme weather as well as information on biodiversity impacts;
5. opening access to environmental big data from space-based and in situ observations as key driver for the development of new services and for promoting activities in the private sector; and
6. developing new technologies, such as laser-based sensors, high resolution wireless networks and remotely operated autonomous systems, which leads to additional co-benefits.

The environmental RIs play a key role at the global scale contributing to the UN Framework Conventions (e.g. the Convention on Climate Change, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, or the Convention on Biological Diversity) and global data systems, such as Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW). They assist the European component of GEO in the development of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) that will link Earth observation resources world-wide across multiple Societal Benefit Areas (e.g. climate, disasters, weather, water, ecosystems, biodiversity, agriculture, energy, or health) making them available for better informed decision making. They are feeding in the European Union’s flagship Copernicus programme providing validated information services in six areas (land monitoring, marine monitoring, atmosphere monitoring, emergency management, security, and climate change) and focus on operational monitoring of the atmosphere, oceans, and land services whose main users are policy makers and public authorities. Additional linkages are being developed with the INSPIRE Directive and on-going Joint Programming Initiatives.

In addition to targeted research on phenomena specific for the individual Environment sub-domains, a holistic research using cross-disciplinary approaches is needed to tackle the environmental and societal challenges. To assist with new research and innovation Missions, the environmental RIs aim at:

• addressing global and regional challenges by deepening the understanding of Earth system processes and improving the link between scientific understanding and policy making;
• achieving national and international objectives for a resilient society, sustain able economies, and a healthy environment worldwide;
• fostering new economic opportunities, improving efficiency, and reducing costs to public sector budgets through innovation and collaboration.

The creative research beyond the traditional silos is needed to develop innovative solutions for protective and preventive measures and to identify the optimal mechanisms for their implementation.

Figure 1.
The Landscape of the Environment domain.