Availability, accessibility, quality and comparability of monitoring data for European forests for use in air pollution and climate change science

Abstract

Data from existing monitoring programmes such as ICP Forests, ICP Integrated Monitoring and EMEP, as well as from large-scale international projects such as CarboEurope IP and NitroEurope, can be used to answer questions about the impacts of air pollution and climate change on forest ecosystems and the feedbacks of forest to climate. However, for full use to be made of the available data, a number of questions need to be answered related to the availability, accessibility, quality and comparability of the data. For example, how can these databases be accessed, e.g., freely, over the internet, on request, by authorisation? How should intellectual property rights be protected, while improving access to data? What possibilities exist for harmonisation? Which quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures have been used and for how long? These and other relevant questions are discussed

The Level II aggregated forest soil condition database links soil physicochemical and hydraulic properties with long-term observations of forest condition in Europe

“…A lack of such detailed and harmonised information had been identified by several studies (Köhl et al 2000;De Vries et al 2007;Morvan et al 2008;Clarke et al 2011;Danielewska et al 2013). A specific asset is the combination of physicochemical and structural soil variables with laborious-to-measure soil hydraulic properties, which enables the investigation of pedotransfer functions for soil hydraulic characteristics (Wösten et al 2001;Teepe et al 2003).…”

Monitoring ectomycorrhizal fungi at large scales for science, forest management, fungal conservation and environmental policy

“…Helmisaari et al 2009) and increasingly for trans-national (e.g. Clarke et al 2011;Cox et al 2010b;Kristensen et al 2004) research. European forests are uniquely suitable and tractable for the study of mycorrhizas because (1) there is relatively low forest biodiversity compared to North America and Asia, (2) an extensive and intensive forest monitoring network is available, (3) over 95 % of forest area is covered by ECM trees, (4) fungi are relatively wellcharacterised compared with other areas of the world and (5) there are strong natural and anthropogenic environmental gradients (e.g.…”

Soil microbial community responses to windthrow disturbance in Tatra National Park (Slovakia) during the period 2006 – 2013 / Odozva pôdneho mikrobiálneho spoločenstva na veternú kalamitu v Tatranskom národnom parku (Slovensko) v období rokov 2006–2013

“…Moreover, frequency and intensity of such disturbances is expected to increase, and temperate forests may experience growing damages in the future (Hlásny et al 2014). Data from long-term monitoring plots can be very useful for answering the questions about the impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems and the feedbacks between forest ecosystems and climate (Clarke et al 2011;Margesin et al 2014).…”