Challenges in coupling LTER with environmental assessments: An insight from potential and reality of the Chinese Ecological Research Network in servicing environment assessments

Shaoxia Xia; Yu Liu; Xiubo Yu; Bojie Fu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.284

Challenges in coupling LTER with environmental assessments: An insight from potential and reality of the Chinese Ecological Research Network in servicing environment assessments

Sci Total Environ. 2018 Aug 15:633:1302-1313. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.284. Epub 2018 Mar 30.

Authors

Shaoxia Xia¹, Yu Liu², Xiubo Yu¹, Bojie Fu³

Affiliations

¹ Synthesis Research Centre of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network, Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modelling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
² Synthesis Research Centre of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network, Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modelling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. Electronic address: liuyu@igsnrr.ac.cn.
³ State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100085 Beijing, China.

PMID: 29758883
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.284

Abstract

Environmental assessments estimate, evaluate and predict the consequences of natural processes and human activities on the environment. Long-term ecosystem observation and research networks (LTERs) are potentially valuable infrastructure to support environmental assessments. However, very few environmental assessments have successfully incorporated them. In this study, we try to reveal the current status of coupling LTERs with environmental assessments and look at the challenges involved in improving this coupling through exploring the role that Chinese Ecological Research Network (CERN), the LTER of China, currently plays in regional environment assessments. A review of official protocols and standards, regional assessments and CERN researches related to ecosystems and environment shows that there is great potential for coupling CERN with environment assessments. However in practice, CERN does not currently play the expected role. Remote sensing and irregular inventory data are still the main data sources currently used in regional assessments. Several causes led to the present situation: (1) insufficient cross-site research and failure to scale up site-level variables to the regional scale; (2) data barriers resulting from incompatible protocols and low data usability due to lack of data assimilation and scaling; and (3) absence of indicators relevant to human activities in existing monitoring protocols. For these reasons, enhancing cross-site monitoring and research, data assimilation and scaling up are critical steps required to improve coupling of LTER with environmental assessments. Site-focused long-term monitoring should be combined with wide-scale ground surveys and remote sensing to establish an effective connection between different environmental monitoring platforms for regional assessments. It is also necessary to revise the current monitoring protocols to include human activities and their impacts on the ecosystem, or change the LTERs into Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) networks.

Keywords: Aquatic ecosystems; Chinese Ecological Research Network (CERN); Ecosystem and environmental assessment; Long-term observation network; Terrestrial ecosystems.