Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

The Power of Size: How cross-disciplinary scaling transforms assessment and management of environmental risks

Project description

Scaling relationships for risk assessment underpinned by overarching principles

Over recent decades, anthropogenic pressures on the environment have intensified, leading to over 100 000 pollutants, species, and sites requiring attention. Proper assessment tools are urgently needed to prioritise these environmental problems and select sustainable solutions. With this in mind, the ERC-funded PowerOfSize project will create a cross-disciplinary suite of mechanistic and statistical relationships for environmentally relevant parameters. Unlike existing models hindered by data gaps, PowerOfSize links parameters to size descriptors such as catchment area and organism weight. This approach aims to cover the emission of pollutants, their fate in catchments and cities, accumulation in organisms, and effects on communities. By identifying overarching scaling principles, PowerOfSize aspires to enhance our understanding and significantly reduce the data demands of environmental assessment tools.

Objective

Setting
Over the last decades, anthropogenic pressures on the environment have dramatically intensified and diversified. Nowadays, we have to deal with 100,000+ pollutants, species and sites. To set the right priorities among these environmental problems and to select the best alternatives among sustainable solutions, proper assessment tools are urgently needed.

Relevance
While several models are available, application to thousands of cases is severely limited by data gaps due to financial, ethical, disciplinary and other constraints. As an alternative, missing information can be obtained by linking parameters to size (e.g. catchment area, organism weight). While scaling has been proven valuable for a few parameters, relationships have been derived in a mono-disciplinary context only.

Objectives
Following the urgent scientific and societal needs, the overall aim of PowerOfSize is to obtain a cross-disciplinary suite of mechanistic and statistical relationships for environmentally relevant parameters (quantities) in assessment models as a function of size and other descriptors, underpinned by overarching scaling principles. Based on research gaps and policy priorities, we focus on pollutants, covering emission and fate in catchments and cities, accumulation in organisms and effects on communities.

Methods, expected results and impact
Based on information from reviews, databases and articles, we will derive empirical and theoretical relationships for rate, time, density and other quantities Y (parameters) as a function of city, catchment, organism and community size X, covering, e.g. water in catchments, materials in cities, blood in organisms and biomass in communities as well as the pollutants they generate, carry and degrade. Identifying overarching principles based on shared system characteristics (e.g. dimension), the integrated suite obtained 1) profoundly advances our understanding and 2) crucially reduces data-hungriness of assessment tools.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2023-ADG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

STICHTING RADBOUD UNIVERSITEIT
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 500 000,00
Address
HOUTLAAN 4
6525 XZ Nijmegen
Netherlands

See on map

Region
Oost-Nederland Gelderland Arnhem/Nijmegen
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 500 000,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0