On 29 April 2025, the Alliance for Trans-Eurasian Exchange and Silk Road Civilization (ATES) successfully hosted the thematic session titled "Climate and Environment Changes and their Impact on Trans-Eurasian Exchange and Civilization along the Silk Road" (CL3.2.9) at the 2025 General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna. This session show cased recent achievements in interdisciplinary research, engaging in an in-depth discussion on environmental change and human-civilization interactions along the Silk Road. 

Co-convened by Prof. Elena Xoplaki (University of Giessen, Germany), Dr. Haichao Xie, Dr. Shengqian Chen (Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences), and Dr. Shanjia Zhang (Lanzhou University), the session brought together international scholars from fields including physical geography, environmental science, and historical archaeology. The session program included both oral and poster presentations, with special emphasis on providing early-career researchers a platform to disseminate novel findings.

During the session, experts from China, Germany, the UK, Switzerland and other countries engaged in topics on water resource variations, climate change mechanisms, and their impacts on Silk Road development. Using the remote sensing data, reanalysis products, archaeological discoveries, and paleoclimatic reconstructions, scientists examined the historical spatiotemporal patterns of water resources in Central Asian arid regions to qualify role of climatic and environmental changes in shaping the regional human activities.