Monitoring protocols

Our Long-term ecosystem monitoring methods

In order to build our long-term datasets tracking environmental change at ECN sites, we make our detailed, repeat measurements according to a set of detailed protocols. These cover selected physical, chemical and biological components of ecosystems.

In this section...

Terrestrial ● Freshwater ● Calendar ● Technical notes

ECN aims to provide a broad baseline of integrated environmental information applicable to a range of environmental issues (e.g. climate change, water pollution, biodiversity, atmospheric pollution). The measurements made by ECN therefore cover a wide range of physical, chemical and biological 'driving and response' variables. Consistency over time, a vital attribute of any long-term dataset is achieved by adherence to a clearly defined set of published analytical protocols.

While there are numerous long-term, issue-specific environmental monitoring initiatives nationally, ECN's unique multi-disciplinary approach enables the analysis of important relationships between environmental variables and across ecosystem components.

In this section you can find detailed information about the measurements we make and the protocols (methods) used.

Terrestrial site protocols
Freshwater site protocols