Two Hungarian researchers have been awarded the Environmental Science Youth Award by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for their work on climate change and river ecology. Nandor Csikos from HUN-REN Centre for Agricultural Research published a 2025 paper in Nature Geoscience estimating that global ecosystem restoration can sequester at most 85 to 97 gigatonnes of carbon by 2100, far less than earlier optimistic projections. The study uses machine learning to model realistic carbon removal and notes that climate change itself will further reduce that potential. Restoration remains critical for biodiversity and local conditions, but the paper sets a more grounded expectation for nature based carbon offsets. Zsuzsanna Nemes-Kokai from HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research analyzed 15 years of data from the River Raba to understand how declining rainfall reshapes benthic diatom communities. Her 2023 paper in Ecological Indicators found that sustained precipitation loss drives major shifts in species composition and functional diversity, while isolated drought years had little effect. The work highlights how chronic climate trends, not just extreme events, alter freshwater ecosystems. Both researchers received the MTA Environmental Science Youth Award for these contributions.
