Periodic Reporting for period 3 - eLTER (European Long-Term Ecosystem and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure) Reporting period: 2018-06-01 to 2019-10-31 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Society and the human use of natural resources depend on continuously available ecosystem services. Key questions for managing and sustaining ecosystem services in the face of global change are:• How are ecosystems/biodiversity changing or adapting to global-change stresses? • What are determinants of ecosystem resilience? • What are threshold interactions resulting in system shifts?• How can we respond locally, nationally and at international levels to support systems that are more resilient to global change effects?The overall aim of the eLTER project is to move forward the European network of Long-Term Ecosystem Research sites and socio-ecological research platforms to provide highest quality services for multiple use, enabling European-scale investigation of major ecosystems and socio-ecological systems targeted to support knowledge based decision making. The strategic goals of eLTER are:To secure the LTER Infrastructure´s compliance to grand societal and research challenges and stakeholder needsTo design a high-performance, complementary and interoperable ecosystem and socio-ecological RITo develop IT services for data provisioning and user need driven, public accessTo foster the societal relevance, usability and multiple use of information, data and services Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far eLTER outcomes encompass a range of essential elements, a selection of which is provided here including modes of exploitation and utilisation: eLTER has developed a priority list of the grand societal and research challenges. Thereby, the eLTER RI becomes increasingly aligned with and streamlined within the overall European environmental RI landscape. eLTER is collecting representative information regarding the instrumentation and design characteristics of the European LTER sites to provide a framework for site classification and benchmarking. A comparative overview of the European RI was put together which describes, categorises and interprets the roles and the mutual collaboration between them. The comprehensive horizon scanning effort has clearly identified user needs for the research infrastructure in relation to major societal challenges and in this way contributed to the objective to optimise the eLTER RIs compliance to grand societal and research challenges and stakeholder needs. The dialogue between eLTER and other environmental RIs has proven very successful and will go into the future to ensure the integration and complementarity in meeting and responding to the Grand Challenges. Other RIs are key stakeholders, thus, eLTER has actively promoted the joint work on research challenges e.g. within the concept of ENVRIplus and other international initiatives. The representative analysis of the current state of LTER Europe's infrastructure has made it possible to uncover conceptual gaps in terms of both geographical coverage and infrastructure design. To support all this content related work, and in order to underpin the structured interactions and overarching purpose of the components of the LTER development, a joint and consistent branding and terminology was consistently pursued, also reflected by a shared website. eLTER training activities provide a fundamental pillar for addressing the research challenges with common ground and provide successful examples of stakeholder activation and integration. Regional climate change information was analysed on a site level, and the suitability of eLTER-sites was tested to detect climate change impacts and to quantify biodiversity indicators. Thereby, the possibilities of the eLTER infrastructure were shown to provide answers and methodologies related to integrated impacts of climate change and air pollution impacts. Data management played a major role and will enable improved utilisation of eLTER data and, through the combination of data sets from various origins, also novel applications. The eLTER Data Integration Portal is now operational although work on its improvement continues. A new eLTER landing page is online at https://data.lter-europe.net. A model toolkit was developed applied for cross-site relationships between modelled and observed biogeochemical and biodiversity indicators. The information management tools developed in the course of this project provide services to document, publish and share data to a large audience. Data collected through the eLTER VA schema are shared using standard services. Transnational Access was particularly shaped for young scientists to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the eLTER RI. Transnational access has also been an effective tool for cross-site applications, and several of the projects are of a multi- and some also a transdisciplinary nature. eLTER has performed beyond expectations. With the acceptance to the ESFRI Roadmap 2018 a long-lasting and sustainable impact of this Starting Communities project is secured. Through the approval of the two projects eLTER PPP and eLTER PLUS the further development will be fostered of the eLTER Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) in line with the planning payed out by this project. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) The eLTER RI will operate a cost-efficient, pan-European, distributed RI, suitable to address multiple environmental research issues and challenges related to the current and future state of the European geo-eco-socio-system. The recent developments have underpinned the relevance of the eLTER project as key contributor in designing and building the eLTER RI. The eLTER RI endeavor specifically considers:• the importance of coordinated efforts to address the major societal challenges of global change and its impacts on the environment• the key importance of defining new multi- and transdisciplinary strategies and infrastructures for environmental research supporting sustainable societies• the improvement in efficiency brought about by eLTER RI, accomplished by - maximizing the return on previous investments through multiple RI and legacy data usage,- comprehensively covering Europe’s diverse range of ecosystems, - integrating the generic backbone RI on the basis of key contemporary scientific questions, common concepts, and shared services, - consolidating long-term strategies among European, and global LTER networks for harmonized geo-eco-socio-system and biodiversity observations, and thereby - reducing redundancies and total continental RI costs, inter alia through complementarities with related RIs (e.g. Memorandum of Cooperation between LifeWatch and LTER)• the positive effects for research institutions participating in and contributing to the RI, including the enhancement of the value of their pre-investments by adding an international dimension to previously local/national/regional engagements; privileged access to a distributed European RI and to its services; technical and methodological guidance for site upgrades• the clear specification of the role and science case of individual RIs, considering the complexity of the European RI landscape, and to accordingly define interactions with “sister” RIs in an evident manner for national shareholders, whereby the eLTER project has taken a very active role and will continue its co-leading involvement in the context of ENVRIplus and its successor ENVRIfair. bildschirmfoto-2017-02-28-um-19-58-56.png
