{"title":"The eLTER research infrastructure: Current design and coverage of environmental and socio-ecological gradients","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.indic.2024.100456","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Addressing global change requires standardised observations across all ecosystem spheres. To that end, the distributed Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) strives for an optimal observational design of its over 200 in-situ facilities. Their spatial distribution should be unbiased to scale local data to its continental target region.</p><p>Therefore, we assessed biases in the emerging eLTER RI in-situ facility network. We (i) conducted a survey describing the emerging eLTER RI, (ii) detected critical <em>gaps</em> in its coverage of Reference Parameters by identifying biases in a six-dimensional thematic space and determined regions, where these biases cluster spatially, and (iii) derived recommendations to further develop the eLTER RI network.</p><p>Three distinct <em>gaps</em> were identified: the Iberian, Eastern and Nordic Gap. They resulted mainly from underrepresentation of agricultural lands, mesic and dry regions with low economic density and the Mediterranean, Continental and Boreal biogeoregions. The patterns of underrepresentation are driven by various factors including the thematic context of site establishment over the past decades, operations logistics and funding constraints. We consider closing these <em>gaps</em> of highest priority for spatial network development.</p><p>Mitigating the biases in the eLTER RI network is crucial to enable confident scaling of local data to the European scale. This will allow the eLTER RI to provide a comprehensive foundation for scientists, policy and decision makers to face global change. Next, a comprehensive dataset of possible additional research sites over Europe must be analysed to derive site- and country-specific recommendations for cost-efficient gap mitigation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":36171,"journal":{"name":"Environmental and Sustainability Indicators","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665972724001247/pdfft?md5=6c4baea21101db2119e84a4a1230b812&pid=1-s2.0-S2665972724001247-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental and Sustainability Indicators","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665972724001247","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Addressing global change requires standardised observations across all ecosystem spheres. To that end, the distributed Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) strives for an optimal observational design of its over 200 in-situ facilities. Their spatial distribution should be unbiased to scale local data to its continental target region.
Therefore, we assessed biases in the emerging eLTER RI in-situ facility network. We (i) conducted a survey describing the emerging eLTER RI, (ii) detected critical gaps in its coverage of Reference Parameters by identifying biases in a six-dimensional thematic space and determined regions, where these biases cluster spatially, and (iii) derived recommendations to further develop the eLTER RI network.
Three distinct gaps were identified: the Iberian, Eastern and Nordic Gap. They resulted mainly from underrepresentation of agricultural lands, mesic and dry regions with low economic density and the Mediterranean, Continental and Boreal biogeoregions. The patterns of underrepresentation are driven by various factors including the thematic context of site establishment over the past decades, operations logistics and funding constraints. We consider closing these gaps of highest priority for spatial network development.
Mitigating the biases in the eLTER RI network is crucial to enable confident scaling of local data to the European scale. This will allow the eLTER RI to provide a comprehensive foundation for scientists, policy and decision makers to face global change. Next, a comprehensive dataset of possible additional research sites over Europe must be analysed to derive site- and country-specific recommendations for cost-efficient gap mitigation.
应对全球变化需要对所有生态系统领域进行标准化观测。为此,分布式综合欧洲长期生态系统、临界区和社会生态研究基础设施(eLTER RI)努力对其 200 多个原位设施进行最佳观测设计。因此,我们对正在形成的 eLTER RI 实地设施网络的偏差进行了评估。我们(i) 对新兴的 eLTER RI 进行了调查,(ii) 通过识别六维主题空间中的偏差,发现其在参考参数覆盖方面的关键差距,并确定了这些偏差在空间上的聚集区域,(iii) 提出了进一步发展 eLTER RI 网络的建议。这些差距主要是由于农业用地、经济密度较低的中温带和干旱地区以及地中海、大陆和北 寒带生物地理区域的代表性不足造成的。造成代表性不足的因素有很多,包括过去几十年来建立遗址的主题背景、运行后勤和资金限制。我们认为缩小这些差距是空间网络发展的重中之重。减少 eLTER RI 网络中的偏差对于将本地数据可靠地扩展到欧洲尺度至关重要。这将使 eLTER RI 为科学家、政策制定者和决策者面对全球变化提供一个全面的基础。下一步,必须对欧洲可能增加的研究地点的综合数据集进行分析,以得出针对具体地点和国家的具有成本效益的缩小差距建议。