Included below is a brief statement of the primary goal(s) for each of the networks. A more complete description of the networks can be found in Annex III.
ECN goals are to collect, store, analyse and interpret long-term data based on a set of key variables which drive and respond to environmental change at terrestrial and freshwater sites across the UK. ECN data will be used to distinguish short-term fluctuations from long-term trends associated with man’s activities and to predict future changes.
The goals are:
To explore and demonstrate approaches to in situ biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of its components;
To provide support for demonstration projects, environmental education and training and research and monitoring related to local, regional, national and global issues of conservation and development.
The primary goals of the LTER Network are to facilitate research:
To understand ecological phenomena that occur over long temporal and broad spatial scales;
To create a legacy of well-designed and documented, long-term experiments,
To conduct major syntheses and theoretical efforts; and
To provide information for the identification and solution of societal problems.
The concepts of the LTER Network are in agreement with those of GTOS, but LTER has a stronger emphasis on research than monitoring.
The primary goals of CERN are:
To monitor environmental change;
To study the structure, function, dynamics and management of ecosystems;
To provide the managerial models of sustainable use of ecosystems at the local level;
To provide the scientific basis for decision-making process at the provincial and national levels.
The primary goals of ICP IM are:
To monitor the state of ecosystems (catchments/plots) and provide an explanation of changes in terms of causative environmental factors, in order to provide a scientific basis for emission control;
To develop and validate models for the simulation of ecosystem responses;
To carry out biomonitoring for detecting natural changes, in particular to assess effects of air pollutants and climate change.
In a more long-term perspective the IM concept is useful among other things in monitoring ecosystem effects of climate change, ozone depletion and changes in biodiversity.
The major goal is to improve the understanding of ecological systems and environmental degradation processes.
ROSELT is a monitoring system of desertification for African countries with the following major goals:
To improve the understanding of the mechanisms leading to desertification;
To establish the indicators related to the causes and the effects of the desertification;
To propose actions for the optimal management of natural resources;
To provide assistance in training in relation to environmental issues.
The goal of the CGIAR is to contribute, through its research, to promoting sustainable agriculture for food security in the developing countries.
The goals of AMAP are:
To monitor, assess and report the status of the arctic environment;
To document levels and trends of pollutants;
To document and assess the sources and effects of anthropogenic pollutants, including impact of pollutant fluxes from the lower latitudes on the arctic environment;
To recognise the importance of the use of the arctic flora and fauna by indigenous peoples and to assess their relationship to human health;
To recommend actions for protecting the arctic environment.
The Euro Fluxnet will address the following specific goals:
To characterise fluxes and energy exchange at the surface in order to provide useful parameters to global and regional climate modellers and to analyse the variables that determine energy partitioning by forests in different climatic conditions, including extreme events and stress limitations;
To determine the sink strength of European forests for carbon and analyse the variables that determine the gains and the losses of carbon from forests of differing vegetation composition and in different climate regions;
To analyse the response of water and carbon fluxes from European forests to climatic factors in order to aid regional scale modelling designed to predict impacts of global environmental change on forest ecosystem function;
To provide objective data for the validation of forest models, related to growth, partitioning of primary production, water cycling and hydrology;
To provide information for the development and testing of schemes designed to elaborate forest-atmosphere interactions based on remotely sensed data;
To recommend management strategies for the conservation of carbon stores in forests.
The goal of the programme is: To describe and understand the interactive physical, chemical and biological processes that regulate the total earth system, the unique environment that it provides for life, the changes that are occurring in this system, and the manner in which they are influenced by human actions.
