Xiaoyang Zhong
Guest Research Scholar
Sustainable Service Systems Research Group
Energy, Climate, and Environment Program
Biography
Xiaoyang Zhong is a research scholar in the Sustainable Service Systems Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program. He is deeply interested in understanding the grand challenges of our time, particularly those relating to materials, energy, and water. He led the first comprehensive exploration into how the global sand crisis could be addressed by changing the way we develop living spaces. This work initiated a broad discourse across major journals such as the New Scientist, Nature, and Nature Sustainability. He led one of the earliest efforts in linking changes in the global energy system with the material system to advance the modeling of future environmental impacts from materials production. This involved combining tools like prospective life cycle assessment (LCA), which links Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) scenarios to LCA, and dynamic material flow analysis.Before joining IIASA in early 2023, he was a postdoctoral researcher working on The Future Availability of Secondary Raw Materials project at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He completed his PhD at the same institute, with a thesis titled, “Sheltering 10 billion people in a warming and resource-scarce world: challenges and opportunities”. At IIASA, he works on developing the MESSAGEix-Buildings model, leads the Global Appliances Dynamics and Impacts Modeling (GLANCE), and contributes to various other projects including ALPS, CircEUlar, and the DG Grow project on Analysis of Life-Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of EU Buildings and Construction. In addition, he also leads the research on infrastructure and energy system resilience to climate-driven natural hazards, such as flooding and rising water temperatures, as well as assesses critical mineral risks and their environmental and social impacts all over the world, among other topics.
Over the past decade and a half, he has held leadership roles in multicultural associations coordinating large-scale scientific, cultural, and social welfare initiatives. For example, as President (2019-2020) of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in Leiden, he co-organized flagship events like the 2019 Talent Forum and Spring Festival Gala in the Netherlands, attracting over 1000 attendees. He founded and leads the IIASA Basketball Club, organizing regular sports events to foster community engagement.
Last update: 25 FEB 2025
Publications
Alaux, N., Bechstedt, N., Zhong, X., Mastrucci, A. , Ramon, D., Steinberger-Maierhofer, D., Allacker, K., Passer, A., & Röck, M. (2026). Context-specific life cycle emissions pathways for EU buildings and construction. Nature Communications 10.1038/s41467-026-73433-1. (In Press)
Steinberger-Maierhofer, D., Alaux, N., Ramon, D., Popek, S., Potrč Obrecht, T., Kockat, J., Zhong, X., Mastrucci, A. , Ruschi Mendes Saade, M., Allacker, K., Passer, A., & Röck, M. (2026). Biogenic carbon dioxide storage and mineral carbonation uptake in EU buildings. Journal of Environmental Management 407 e129794. 10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.129794.
Jin, Y., Behrens, P., Zhong, X., & Scherer, L. (2025). Water temperature regulations could help to balance biodiversity and energy security. Nature Reviews Biodiversity 10.1038/s44358-025-00069-2.
Jin, Y., Zhong, X., Yuan, R., Feng, C., & Tang, X. (2025). Methane emissions from fossil fuel extraction and embodied in fossil fuel trade in China. Journal of Cleaner Production 516 e145802. 10.1016/j.jclepro.2025.145802.
Cao, Z., Chu, C., Liu, J., Su, X., Zhong, X., & Behrens, P. (2025). Closing the global sand circularity gap needs a systems approach. One Earth 8 (2) e101199. 10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101199.