Physics for the environment and sustainable development

Abstract: A reliable understanding of the Earth system is essential for the life quality of modern society. Natural hazards are the cause of most life and resource losses. The ability to define the conditions for a sustainable development of humankind, to keep the Earth system within the boundaries of habitable states, or to predict critical transitions and events in the dynamics of the Earth system are crucial to mitigate and adapt to Earth system related events and changes (e.g., volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, climate change) and to avert the disastrous consequences of natural hazards. In this chapter, we discuss key concepts from nonlinear physics and show that they enable us to treat challenging problems of Earth sciences which cannot be solved by classic methods. In particular, the concepts of multi-scaling, recurrence, synchronization, and complex networks have become crucial in the very last decades for a substantially more profound understanding of the dynamics of earthquakes, landslides, or (palaeo-)climate. They can even provide a significantly improved prediction of several high-impact extreme events. Additionally, crucial open challenges in the realm of methodological nature and applications to Earth sciences are given.