News
19 May 2020
COVID-19 might have altered our lives in the last few months, but at eLTER we have proved our resilience and determination for success through the extremely fruitful and inspiring kick off meetings of our two projects - eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS (30 March - 03 April 2020). In the space of just a few weeks we’ve moved the two events fully online, with no cuts to the initially planned programme. We missed on a traditional group photo but we kept our spirits high through improvising severa...
17 April 2020
At the end of March, 2020, while COVID-19 continued to spread across the globe, more than 100 scientists of the integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological systems Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) convened virtually to kick off a five-year effort to strengthen Europe’s capacity for long-term ecological observation and research though its two new projects (Horizon2020 Advanced Communities “eLTER PLUS” and the eLTER RI Preparatory Phase Project). While the confere...
4 December 2019
Improving knowledge about ecosystem functioning is essential for addressing the crucial challenges of managing limited natural resources in a sustainable manner, to assure long-term human wellbeing on the planet. The Global Ecosystem Research Infrastructure initiative (GERI) aims at establishing indispensable infrastructures across continents. GERI was discussed in a high level conference of the G7 Group of Senior Officials (GSO) in Shanghai last week, and approved as a GSO use case.
The pote...
15 September 2019
With the approval of two projects totalling 14 million euros for eLTER, the EU is opening another important chapter in the development of a permanent infrastructure for long-term ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research in Europe. This funding will enable significant development of the eLTER Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI), in areas such as the RI's organisation, business model and legal basis. It will also give a major boost to scientific work done at eLTER sites and platforms....
17 June 2019
The special issue, entitled “Italian Long-Term Ecological Research for understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning. Case studies from aquatic, terrestrial and transitional domains” is the first published collection of studies performed at LTER-Italy sites. The eighteen papers in the volume present research carried out at two Antarctic and 16 Italian sites, one of which includes a comparative analysis with other International LTER Sites in Northern Europe and USA. Two additional papers are...
12 May 2019
eLTER reps including Michael Mirtl (chair of eLTER, from EAA, Austria), Nick Arnaud (CNRS, France) and Roland Baatz (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany) were in Vienna last week at the annual conference of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). They joined representatives of many other European environmental research infrastructures (RIs) at the ENVRI community booth. This popular exhibition stand was a source of information about RIs covering many environmental domains (solid earth, ecosystem/bio...
16 December 2018
The ESFRI 2018 Roadmap identifies new Research Infrastructures (RI) of pan-European priority and, as announced previously, eLTER RI is among them. These new research infrastructures will be designed to meet the long term needs of European research communities.
eLTER RI's inclusion on the ESFRI Roadmap is a significant achievement for the European ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research communities. It paves the way for the further development and formalization of eLTER RI, the...
25 September 2018
On 25th September, representatives of major Irish institutions in the environmental research and monitoring domain along with an eLTER delegation held an "LTER Ireland" exploratory meeting in Waterford, Ireland.The Irish team had invited John Watkins & Mike Brown (eLTER IT core team, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, UK) and Michael Mirtl (European and global LTER chair) to present and discuss LTER and specifically eLTER Research Infrastructure implementation plans in Europe.The half-day m...
9 September 2018
We are pleased to announce that the pan-European eLTER Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) has been included on the ESFRI 2018 roadmap. This is a significant achievement for the European ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research communities. It paves the way for the further development and formalization of eLTER RI. The eLTER ESFRI process is led by the German Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in close cooperation with the Environment Agency Austria (EAA) and with sup...
1 August 2018
In his article, Prof. Kulmala (University of Helsinki) argues that grand challenges such as climate change, water and food security and urban air pollution, despite being linked, are typically studied separately. Specifically, observations of the interactions between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere are poorly linked, with few coupled observations made by satellites and ground stations. Vast areas of the globe are barely sampled at all. "The result is a cacophony of information that yields...