Were are geoscientists in our sustainable future?

Over the last 5 years, the number of students choosing geoscience subjects as university degrees has been steadily decreasing, even when omitting the September 2020 entries that would have been affected by COVID. Does that mean that Geosciences as a whole are not as relevant in our society nowadays as much as they were in the past? or are there other factors at play?

Are Geosciences still relevant?

Geosciences cover the scientific study of the Earth and its processes. The iconic subject is geology, the foundation subject that is trying to understand the inner workings of the Earth and the Earth’s surface using elements of physics, chemistry and biology. Alongside the overarching geology lie more targeted subjects such as geophysics, physical geography, palaeontology and structural geology, just to name a few… Geosciences also include the environmental geosciences such as oceanography, (paleo)climate studies, meteorology, ecosystem studies, hydrogeology and contaminant transport…

All these areas of studies together allowed for the major advancements in natural disaster prediction and mitigation (volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, floods, hurricanes…), resource management (water extraction, mining, fossil fuel), civil engineering (construction, ecological impact mitigation…) and much more if we add in the academic advancements. But what about today? are those fields of study exhausted? Far from it!

Geosciences are especially relevant today as our society is faced by new issues, while still needing to improve on the older fronts. All the fields of study mentioned earlier are still up to date and geoscientist still today find new ideas to progress in those areas, while perfecting the older ones. The new issues geoscientist need to address are linked to the much needed shift in our society to a sustainable future. This puts the emphasis on a range of subjects.
First comes the question of a sustainable resource management. This includes looking into the extraction industry and making the mining and extraction of oil, fossil fuels and water; cleaner and more sustainable. Geoscientists try innovative techniques to deal with carbon emissions (carbon capture and storage), storage (hydrogen underground storage, chemical and radioactive waste storage) and energy production (geothermal energy, wind turbines, tide energy…). The environmental impact of common practices is also a key aspect and environmental geoscientists closely study the interaction between the biology, the environment, and the anthropological impact.

With geosciences being as relevant as ever, what next?

With all those up-to-date applications and keeping in mind a great amount of current geoscientists approach retirement, there is a great need for geoscientists now. With geosciences being widely relevant, the low amount of applicants at university level has to come from other factors. Awareness about the subject is likely to be a major reason for this low amount of applicants, but how do we tackle this?
This reasoning was at hart of the motivation behind the creation of my website, linked to Leonluca’s webinar, all in the common goal to increase the awareness of this fascinating area of science.