European Long-Term Ecosystem Research Infrastructure - European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures
Original (non-English) name
Acronym
eLTER RI - ESFRI
Citation
Abstract
eLTER RI will adopt a fundamentally systemic approach to observe and analyse the environmental system, encompassing biological, geological, hydrological and socioecological perspectives.
While several existing thematic environmental RIs focus on impacts of climate change and/or other elements of environmental change, eLTER RI will be the only research infrastructure embracing holistically the integrated impacts of such stressors on a wide variety of European benchmark ecosystems (major geo-eco-sociological systems across the continent’s ecoclimatological zones and Earth’s critical zone).
eLTER RI will comprise terrestrial, freshwater and transitional water sites. It will allow in-situ, co-located acquisition and gathering of Essential Variables ranging from bio-physicochemical to biodiversity and socio-ecological data. Ecosystem change caused by long-term pressures and short-term pulses will be investigated in a nested design across the scales covered by the eLTER RI site network.