The INGENIO center, a joint initiative of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV), is participating in a study that has established common variables and methods for obtaining comparable scientific data on European ecosystems. The proposed system integrates the observation of soil, water, biodiversity, and the atmosphere with the study of interactions between nature and society.
Long-term observation of environmental changes is crucial for understanding phenomena such as climate change, biodiversity loss, or ecosystem degradation. However, differences in variables, methods, and protocols used by various research groups hinder data comparison. To overcome these limitations, a common observation system has been developed, applicable within the European infrastructure eLTER RI, a large scientific infrastructure spread across 20 countries.
Within the Valencian Community, the network includes three plots dedicated to the continuous monitoring of holm oak and Aleppo pine forests. The study, published in the scientific journal Earth’s Future, was co-authored by 45 researchers from European institutions. Pablo F. Méndez, a researcher at INGENIO, explains that "this initiative brings together teams from different countries within a common observation framework that allows for the comparison of information between regions and improves the understanding of ongoing major environmental changes."
The system, named the Standard Observation Framework, was developed by teams from 25 European countries and proposes variables and methods to generate comparable long-term information across five domains: soils and geology; water; biodiversity; atmosphere; and human activity. Unlike other systems, it explicitly incorporates interactions between ecosystems and societies, considering elements such as land-use changes, socioeconomic dynamics, or ecosystem services.
"This system will enable the generation of more comparable and useful data to address complex environmental challenges from an integrated perspective," Méndez highlights. "It is important for European scientific infrastructures to incorporate not only ecological and climate information but also the social, economic, and political dynamics that influence territories," the researcher concludes.
Concurrently, INGENIO researchers have contributed to developing an instrument for analyzing socio-ecological governance, including involved actors, decision-making processes, and institutional structures that influence the management of natural resources.
