echoes is a two-year research and communication project funded by the Swiss National Science Fund to develop climate change impact scenarios through climate modeling, speculative design and immersive installations.
The climate change related rise in global temperature leads to a more unstable atmosphere. This alters atmospheric circulation patterns as well as oceanic conditions, and contributes to an increased occurrence and intensity of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts.
Droughts of exceptional severity, duration or spatial extent - often called megadroughts - are critical in this context as they can cause major social and ecological disruptions. The last major megadrought in Europe dates back to the late 18th century, but recent observations are showing that the area affected by megadroughts has increased dramatically over the last decades (Chen et al. 2025), and simulations show that Europe is at high risk of experiencing multi-decadal megadroughts by the end of the century (Cook et al. 2022).
Since multi-year droughts in Europe are still scarce in the instrumental record, we lack knowledge about their potential impact. Especially in the mountains the complex topography is raising many questions regarding vegetation response, shifting rainfall patterns and the influence of glaciers on streamflow patterns. Therefore, building scenarios that allow for a better understanding of the impacts from droughts will be key to navigating the future of water in Europe.
MEGADROUGHTS IN THE MOUNTAINS AND THE FUTURE OF WATER
With four major European rivers originating in the country, Switzerland is often referred to as the “water tower of Europe“. The Rhine, the Rhone, the Inn (contributing to the Danube) and the Ticino (a major contributor to the Po river) are largely fed by waters coming from the Alps (Weingartner et al. 2007). Megadroughts in mountains can therefore have impacts way beyond the areas where they actually happen.
Simulating cascading effects across systems that range from drinking water to river transportation to agriculture and the global food chain, from energy production, to tree mortality, wildfires, or species movement, the project makes complex connections comprehensible and investigates how the multitude of possible futures can be communicated to the public.
SOPHISTICATED SUPERCOMPUTING MEETS SPECULATIVE DESIGN
In a multi-disciplinary approach that combines methods from both design and science, the project centers around a core process of joint scenario generation. Dovetailing speculative design with numerical modeling, ECHOES will draft outlooks for possible futures in the Alps. Evolving scenarios in congruence with insights from three scientific research projects ensures scientific rigor, producing ecologically sound speculations (Falkeis 2023).
Unraveling the complexity of large climatic phenomena and their interactions across systems and scales, the project explores the ripple effects of megadroughts in mountain ecosystems, and their echoes in more-than-human systems. In the process of simulating impacts from drought events and imagining future scenarios, advanced super-computing and high-resolution impact modeling is being paired with world-building and speculative design.
WHAT-IF HYPOTHESES
Speculative design poses the question “what if“ to explore alternative futures, leveraging the transformative power of speculation in unlocking imagination. Through immersive storytelling and the power of images, complex connections can be rendered comprehensible. Through means of provocation, storytelling and world-building, speculative design instigates debate, raises questions, and so enables the public as active agents of the future.
Bearing in mind that the future is not a pre-given, but constructed through actions of the present means that multiple futures are possible. In the context of the project, working with multiple possible futures instead of a singular path ahead communicates ecological responsibility and conveys a sense of agency (Falkeis 2023).
DATA & PARTNER PROJECTS
Scientific insights and data will come from three on-going research projects. The SNF-funded MegaWat project and the WSL-funded EMERGE project investigate the impact of megadroughts on Europe's mountain systems. The project TipESM explores, among others, how a changing climate cascades down to tipping points in mountain biodiversity.
Communicating the impacts of extreme weather remains challenging, as such events are either outside the imagination of people or so complex that conveying them becomes difficult. By building onto the simulated scenarios and visualizing the nuanced responses in mountain ecosystems the project connects individual elements into a larger narrative, transforming raw data into tangible emotional realities.
The project will culminate in an exhibition showcasing the immersive installation in 2026, together with the launch of a publication.
Chen, L., Brun, P., Buri, P., Fatichi, S., Gessler, A., McCarthy, M., Pelliciotti, F., Stocker, B., Karger, D.N. (2025) Global increase in the occurrence and impact of megadroughts. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado4245
Cook, B.I., Smerdon, J.E., Cook, E.R. et al. (2022), Megadroughts in the Common Era and the Anthropocene. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 741–757. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00329-1
Falkeis, S. (2023). Turning the Ecological Gears, Exhibition Catalogue.
Weingartner, R., Viviroli, D. and Schädler, B. (2007), Water resources in mountain regions: a methodological approach to assess the water balance in a highland-lowland-system. Hydrol. Process., 21: 578-585. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.6268
