Cyprus Institute’s CARE-C partner in EARTHONE project

The Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C) of the Cyprus Institute is a partner of the newly awarded Horizon  Europe project ‘Environmental Analysis and Resilience for Transformative Human-Optimized Natural Environments – EARTHONE’.

The mission of the EARTHONE project is to tackle the urgent challenge of preserving and enhancing Earth’s natural greenhouse gas (GHG) sinks. This involves understanding how various factors, including socio-economic, demographic, and physical constraints, influence GHG fluxes.

The project adopts a unique interdisciplinary approach by integrating advanced data-driven technologies with regional contexts through living labs. This allows for the development of effective multi-target solutions and guidelines for all stakeholders involved in Land Use – Land Use Change – Forestry (LULUCF) topics. Special emphasis is placed on the most vulnerable areas in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, with pilot studies conducted in Spain, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and North Macedonia.

In EARTHONE, CARE-C will primarily focus on applying regional climate models to evaluate the impacts of climate change on land use and the reciprocal effects. Special emphasis will be placed on assessing the impact on extreme weather events that are relevant to the pilot case studies.

The project has started on 1 January, 2025 and it’s expected to end on 31 December, 2028. It’s coordinated by the Universidad Politecnica De Madrid, Spain, in collaboration with 16 other organisations from 10 different countries across Europe. Participation on behalf of CARE-C is led by Research Scientist Dr George Zittis, who acts as the PI of the Cyprus Institute for EARTHONE.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon RIA – Research Executive Agency, under grant agreement No 101181825

EUROPEAN RESEARCH EXECUTIVE AGENCY (REA)