Regional participation in global demonstration projects was discussed during the NoLIMITS Workshop (24-26 March 1999, Oxford), at the ILTER Workshop (22-25 June, Budapest) and the GTOS CEE Synthesis Workshop (9-10 September, Budapest). Many institutions expressed interest in the project and some have already selected sites and started using the programme. CEE countries that will participate in the Net Primary Productivity project include: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. The Soil Biodiversity and Decomposition Project is planned to have sites in Hungary, Lithuania and Romania.
The role GTOS is playing in developing a Terrestrial Carbon Observations (TCO) initiative has important implications for linking national terrestrial observation initiatives with climate change studies at the national, regional and global levels.
One of the aims of the GTOS CEE Workshop was to initiate regional collaboration. Participants proposed several regional activities. These are listed in Table 5. Further discussions are needed to ensure multilateral participation.
Table 5. Proposed Regional Projects
|
Provisional title |
Proposed by |
Further participants |
|
Land cover changes as a function of political changes between 1970 and 2000 |
Hungary (Büttner) |
Slovakia (Bielek) |
|
Integrated monitoring and mountain areas |
Bulgaria (Metcheva, Vachev) |
|
|
Inventory and assessment of wetlands in the CEE countries |
Czech Rep. (Kvet) |
|
|
Forest health monitoring system (ICP)(ongoing) |
Czech Rep. (Roudna) |
Hungary, Slovakia |
|
Building standardized meta-database model on national biodiversity monitoring systems in the CEE region |
Hungary (Török) |
Estonia (Klein) (technical support by UNEP/GRID) |
|
GIS and remote sensing as a tool for detecting pollution level and land cover changes |
Georgia (Jintcharadze) |
|
|
Human Health and Land Cover Change (perhaps collate with the first proposal?) |
Slovakia (Oszlányi) |
|
|
Black triangle: observation of influences of decreasing loads (ongoing) |
Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia |
|
|
Danube and Elbe Project |
Hungary (Rádai) |
|
