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| Titel |
TERENO – A new Network of Terrestrial Observatories for Environmental Research |
| VerfasserIn |
S. Zacharias, H. R. Bogena, H. Kunstmann, E. Priesack, P. Haschberger, O. Bens, P. Dietrich, H. Vereecken, H. Papen, H. P. Schmid, J. C. Munch, I. Hajnsek |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2009
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 11 (2009) |
| Datensatznummer |
250020734
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Climate change and land use changes are the most important factors of global environmental
change which have to be managed by the society in the next years. Global changes in
terrestrial systems take place on different spatial and temporal scales. In order to address the
challenges of global change, interdisciplinary research in terrestrial environmental science is
of great importance. Therefore, long-term operated „Global Change Observatories“ for
monitoring, analyzing and predicting changing state variables and fluxes within different
environmental compartments are of special importance. Several environmental research
networks have already been established in order to monitor, analyse and predict the
impact of global change on different compartments and/or matter cycles of the
environment. Typically these environmental research networks have focused on
specific research questions, and compartments, such as CarboEurope, FLUXNET and
ILTER
The infrastructure activity TERENO (Terrestrial Environmental Observatories), a
research initiative of the Helmholtz Association, aims to establish a network of observation
platforms linking terrestrial observatories in different sensitive and representative regions.
The observed system consists of the subsurface environment, the land surface including the
biosphere, the lower atmosphere and the anthroposphere. Hydrological units will
be used as the basic scaling units in a hierarchy of evolving scales and structures
ranging from the local scale to the regional scale for multi-disciplinary process
studies.
Terrestrial systems are extremely complex. Despite of this complexity, the terrestrial
component in most process-based climate and biosphere models is typically represented in a
very conceptual and often rudimentary way. Remedying this deficiency is therefore one of the
most important challenges in environmental and terrestrial research, and we suggest
that terrestrial observatories could be an important step towards a new quality in
environmental and terrestrial research. For the first phase three terrestrial observatories
in Germany have been identified: the Lower Rhine Basin, the metropolitan area
Leipzig-Halle, and the Northern pre-Alps including the long-term research stations
Hoeglwald and Scheyern. A fourth Observatory is planned in the German Lowland
region.
The concept of TERENO is illustrated by the Leipzig-Halle area. A monitoring concept
for the Bode catchment – a mesoscale, lower mountain range catchment - will be described.
The Bode river catchment is the central site for hydrological observation at the Leipzig-Halle
TERENO study site. A integrated monitoring and research concept joining hydrological,
atmospherical, biodiversity related, and soil physical research will be implemented during the
next two years. This will lead to scale dependent intensive research activities on different
spatial scales, allowing the development and evaluation of hydrologic scaling strategies.
Hydrological monitoring will range from large scale satellite data to small scale catchment
investigations on flow path, matter transport and transformation using advanced monitoring
networks ranging from aerial photography and spectral analysis to non invasive
geophysical investigations and sensor networks at the point scale (e.g. soil moisture). |
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