TEODOOR, a blueprint for distributed terrestrial observation data infrastructures

The TERENO network: 1. Regional different effects of global climate change on terrestrial systems, 2. Global change affects all terrestrial compartments (water, soil, vegetation, atmosphere), 3. Most existing observation networks focus on specific compartments and/or scientific questions TERENO: 1. Long-term observations (> 15 years) of hydrological and ecological parameters on different scales, 2. Investigation of interaction between the different compartments, 3. Bridging the gap between measurement, modelling and management, 4. Currently 4 observatories, each operated by one individual Helmholtz Center, 5. Project duration: 2008 until >202

The TERENO Northeastern German Lowland Observatory: studying Earth surface processes and structures in a glacially formed landscape (P2 – 05)

Since 2008 a network of Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO) has been established in Germany by the Helmholtz Association as a long-term interdisciplinary research platform, focusing on the impact of climate and land-use change on terrestrial ecosystems and on related process understanding. This observation network consists of four main observation areas that extend across Germany from the Alps to the lowlands, forming in the latter area the Northeastern German Lowland Observatory (TERENO-Northeast). TERENO-Northeast, located in a glacially formed and intensively used landscape, investigates four subject groups and is supported by a central data management. These closely cooperating subject groups work on geoarchives (lake sediment formation, dendrochronology), geopedology (present-day and historic soil carbon redistribution, soil formation, trace gas balances of peatlands), hydrology (lake-groundwater interactions, water balances of lake and river catchments), and remote sensing (soil moisture retrieval, soil mapping). Combining geoarchives (lake sediments, trees, soils) with monitoring enables us to distinguish short-time fluctuations from long-term climatic and anthropogenic trends and to extend time series into the unobserved past. Instrumentation of TERENO-Northeast started in 2011and will be completed in 2014. The observatory comprises five research sites that differ significantly in area size (from a few hectares to several thousands of hectares) and landscape structure (e.g. geology, hydrology, land cover) including intensity and history of land use. Within TERENO-Northeast one of the study sites was chosen for the future establishment of a Critical Zone Observatory, comprising a forested and lake-rich part of the Müritz National Park (CZO Fuerstensee). Several partner organizations are involved in TERENO-Northeast, forming a regional network of non-university research institutions and universities. Further information, publications and data are available via the central TERENO portal: http://teodoor.icg.kfa-juelich.de/overview-de. (Remark: The authors named represent the coordination board of TERENO-Northeast and the main partner organizations, respectively. Several further persons are involved in TERENO-Northeast.

Sustainable management of river oases along the Tarim River (SuMaRiO) in Northwest China under conditions of climate change

The Tarim River basin, located in Xinjiang, NW China, is the largest endorheic river basin in China and one of the largest in all of Central Asia. Due to the extremely arid climate, with an annual precipitation of less than 100 mm, the water supply along the Aksu and Tarim rivers solely depends on river water. This is linked to anthropogenic activities (e.g., agriculture) and natural and semi-natural ecosystems as both compete for water. The ongoing increase in water consumption by agriculture and other human activities in this region has been enhancing the competition for water between human needs and nature. Against this background, 11 German and 6 Chinese universities and research institutes have formed the consortium SuMaRiO (Sustainable Management of River Oases along the Tarim River; http://www.sumario.de), which aims to create a holistic picture of the availability of water resources in the Tarim River basin and the impacts on anthropogenic activities and natural ecosystems caused by the water distribution within the Tarim River basin. On the basis of the results from field studies and modeling approaches as well as from suggestions by the relevant regional stakeholders, a decision support tool (DST) will be implemented that will then assist stakeholders in balancing the competition for water, acknowledging the major external effects of water allocation to agriculture and to natural ecosystems. This consortium was formed in 2011 and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. As the data collection phase was finished this year, the paper presented here brings together the results from the fields from the disciplines of climate modeling, cryology, hydrology, agricultural sciences, ecology, geoinformatics, and social sciences in order to present a comprehensive picture of the effects of different water availability schemes on anthropogenic activities and natural ecosystems along the Tarim River. The second objective is to present the project structure of the whole consortium, the current status of work (i.e., major new results and findings), explain the foundation of the decision support tool as a key product of this project, and conclude with application recommendations for the region. The discharge of the Aksu River, which is the major tributary of the Tarim, has been increasing over the past 6 decades. From 1989 to 2011, agricultural area more than doubled: cotton became the major crop and there was a shift from small-scale to large-scale intensive farming. The ongoing increase in irrigated agricultural land leads to the increased threat of salinization and soil degradation caused by increased evapotranspiration. Aside from agricultural land, the major natural and semi-natural ecosystems are riparian (Tugai) forests, shrub vegetation, reed beds, and other grassland, as well as urban and peri-urban vegetation. Within the SuMaRiO cluster, focus has been set on the Tugai forests, with Populus euphratica as the dominant tree species, because these forests belong to the most productive and species-rich natural ecosystems of the Tarim River basin. At sites close to the groundwater, the annual stem diameter increments of Populus euphratica correlated with the river runoffs of the previous year. However, the natural river dynamics cease along the downstream course and thus hamper the recruitment of Populus euphratica. A study on the willingness to pay for the conservation of the natural ecosystems was conducted to estimate the concern of the people in the region and in China's capital. These household surveys revealed that there is a considerable willingness to pay for conservation of the natural ecosystems, with mitigation of dust and sandstorms considered the most important ecosystem service. Stakeholder dialogues contributed to creating a scientific basis for a sustainable management in the future

Sustainable management of river oases along the Tarim River in North-Western China under conditions of climate change

The Tarim River Basin, located in Xinjiang, NW China, is the largest endorheic river basin of China and one of the largest in whole Central Asia. Due to the extremely arid climate with an annual precipitation of less than 100 mm, the water supply along the Aksu and Tarim River solely depends on river water. This applies for anthropogenic activities (e.g. agriculture) as well as for the natural ecosystems so that both compete for water. The on-going increase of water consumption by agriculture and other human activities in this region has been enhancing the competition for water between human needs and nature. Against this background, 11 German and 6 Chinese universities and research institutes formed the consortium SuMaRiO (www.sumario.de), which aims at gaining a holistic picture of the availability of water resources in the Tarim River Basin and the impacts on anthropogenic activities and natural ecosystems caused by the water distribution within the Tarim River Basin. The discharge of the Aksu River, which is the major tributary to the Tarim, has been increasing over the past 6 decades due to enhanced glacier melt. Alone from 1989 to 2011, the area under agriculture more than doubled. Thereby, cotton became the major crop and there was a shift from small-scale farming to large-scale intensive farming. The major natural ecosystems along the Aksu and Tarim River are riparian ecosystems: Riparian (Tugai) forests, shrub vegetation, reed beds, and other grassland. Within the SuMaRiO Cluster the focus was laid on the Tugai forests, with Populus euphratica as dominant tree, because the most productive and species-rich natural ecosystems can be found among those forests. On sites with groundwater distance of less than 7.5 m the annual increments correlated with river runoffs of the previous year. But, the further downstream along the Tarim River, the more the natural river dynamics ceased, which impacts on the recruitment of Populus euphratica. Household surveys revealed that there is a considerable willingness to pay for conservation of those riparian forests with the mitigation of dust and sandstorms considered as the most important ecosystem service. This interdisciplinary project will result in a decision support tool (DST), build on the participation of regional stakeholders and models based on results and field experiments. This DST finally shall assist stakeholders in balancing the water competition acknowledging the major external effects of any water allocation

Interdisciplinary Geo-ecological Research across Time Scales in the Northeast German Lowland Observatory (TERENO-NE)

The Northeast German Lowland Observatory (TERENO-NE) was established to investigate the regional impact of climate and land use change. TERENO-NE focuses on the Northeast German lowlands, for which a high vulnerability has been determined due to increasing temperatures and decreasing amounts of precipitation projected for the coming decades. To facilitate in-depth evaluations of the effects of climate and land use changes and to separate the effects of natural and anthropogenic drivers in the region, six sites were chosen for comprehensive monitoring. In addition, at selected sites, geoarchives were used to substantially extend the instrumental records back in time. It is this combination of diverse disciplines working across different time scales that makes the observatory TERENO-NE a unique observation platform. We provide information about the general characteristics of the observatory and its six monitoring sites and present examples of interdisciplinary research activities at some of these sites. We also illustrate how monitoring improves process understanding, how remote sensing techniques are fine-tuned by the most comprehensive ground-truthing site DEMMIN, how soil erosion dynamics have evolved, how greenhouse gas monitoring of rewetted peatlands can reveal unexpected mechanisms, and how proxy data provides a long-term perspective of current ongoing changes