Researchers, conservationists and decision-makers have long recognised the importance of understanding processes that determine how ecosystems function, how and why they may be changing, and how resilient they are to both short-term and more sustained disturbances. This need is served through a continuously evolving scientific understanding founded on inter-dependent disciplines of repeated observation, controlled experiments and process-based and mathematical modelling. The UK Environmental Change Network (ECN) was established in 1992 as a network of instrumented sites spanning a wide range of ecosystems at which sustained long-term observations of selected physical, chemical and biological variables are made according to tightly defined protocols.
Scientific challenge
UKCEH coordinates the (ECN) the UK's long-term, multi-agency, environmental change monitoring programme. ECN collects, analyses and interprets long-term data from a network of sites across the country.
ECN鈥檚 physical, chemical and biological datasets - some now spanning over two decades - are a unique national resource that is improving our understanding of how and why the ecological structure and functioning of natural environments change over time. The data help inform research and decision-making on important issues such as the impacts of climate change and air pollution on habitats and species, changes in natural capital and the sustainability of ecosystem functions and services.
The Environmental Change Network is the UK's formal Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) network: it is a member of the , ILTER, and of ILTER's regional network, (a component of ). These connections, coupled with ECN's extensive database, have enabled experts in UKCEH to play a leading role in environmental informatics associated with long-term ecosystem data.
Site-based monitoring and research
Since 1992, ECN has operated across the UK. The network currently comprises 11 terrestrial sites at which make a wide range of environmental measurements. Data are sent to the ECN Data 皇冠体育国际娱乐, where they are checked and added to the ECN Database and made freely available for research, education and other non-commercial purposes. ECN partners also collect data at a further 45 freshwater sites, though these datasets are not currently centrally collated.
The wide range of regular environmental measurements, wealth of historical data and local knowledge of site managers make terrestrial ECN sites particularly suitable as platforms for shorter term experiments and other research. A range of such activities is conducted by ECN partner organisations (including UKCEH) and by other research institutes and universities, and ECN welcomes proposals for additional studies.
ECN data: a unique resource
, along with related datasets, are available on acceptance of an online licence. Data are available for most ECN terrestrial sites from 1993. Some freshwater data is also available. There is no charge for standard data requests (unless there are specific third-party licensing arrangements in place or if a request is particularly complex).
Publication references:
An extensive catalogue of ECN-related publications is available; see the for details.
UKCEH's contribution to the UK Environmental Change Network is funded via our UKSCAPE National Capability Programme.
Principal Investigator
Over 20 years experience in long-term environmental monitoring, survey and assessment of the ecological health of semi-natural ecoystems.