HESCOR (Human & Earth System Coupled Research) is an interdisciplinary research initiative at the University of Cologne that brings together Earth system science, human system modelling, and the humanities to study how interactions between nature and culture have shaped—and continue to shape—our world.
- Project website: http://www.hescor-project.com/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hescor.bsky.social
HESCOR combines paleoclimate/environmental reconstructions, archaeological evidence, and modern computational methods (including machine learning) to address questions such as:
- How have climatic shifts influenced human cultural evolution?
- How do human decisions and societal change impact the Earth system?
- How can computational tools help unlock the past?
The research network is structured around ten thematic Work Packages (WPs) spanning theory, climate modelling, dispersal/network approaches, archaeological databases, and ML-based cultural analyses.
This GitHub organization serves as a curated entry point to HESCOR-related code and infrastructure.
Important: Many research outputs are intentionally hosted in member-owned repositories (to keep ownership, governance, and long-term URLs stable).
This list is here to improve visibility and discovery.
-
PaleoVeg — Python package for paleovegetation reconstruction (predicting vegetation/biome types from bioclimatic variables; includes optional C3/C4 competition corrections).
Repo: https://github.com/roink/PaleoVeg -
Green Wave — Research codebase for reconstructing vegetation phenology and “green waves” using satellite vegetation indices (e.g., NDVI), orbital/insolation forcing, and paleoclimate reconstructions, with links to questions around human mobility and settlement dynamics.
Repo: https://github.com/roink/green_wave
- ckan-docker (HESCOR fork) — Docker Compose-based CKAN deployment setup, used as the basis for our CKAN-backed data portal/database work.
Repo: https://github.com/roink/ckan-docker
- survey123_to_pdf — Command-line workflow to turn a Survey123 CSV export into per-response A4 PDF summaries (grouping repeated blocks and skipping unanswered questions).
Repo: https://github.com/roink/survey123_to_pdf
The project website is the primary hub for news, publications, and contact information:
