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IntroductionPartnershipsPolicyScience
Monitoring, data and research to understand environmental change
We are the UK's long-term environmental monitoring and research programme. We make regular measurements of air, soil, water and a range of animals and plants across a network of sites to determine how and why the natural environment is changing.
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IntroductionSciencePartnershipsPolicy
Understanding environmental change. Supporting environmental science
Our data are used to detect and understand trends in the environment and in the presence and abundance of plants and animals. We support researchers by providing long-term environmental datasets and well-instrumented sites for field research.
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IntroductionSciencePolicyPartnerships
Science to support policymaking and management of natural resources
ECN’s data and expertise are relevant to a range of environmental policy issues including climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. Long-term monitoring can inform policies and check how well they work.
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IntroductionSciencePolicyPartnerships
An active consortium with links across the globe
ECN is a partnership of UK organisations responsible for environmental policies and natural resource management. We also work with similar networks in other countries. ECN is the UK node of ILTER, the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network.
Spotlight on research
Biodiversity encompasses variation from the smallest soil microbes, through to the whole landscape level. At the ECN Moor House site in the moorlands of northern England, researchers are looking at how diversity at different scales affects carbon cycling.
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Loch Leven: 40 years of scientific research
Featured site: Cairngorms
The Cairngorms site, which joined the ECN network in summer 1999, is located high in the Cairngorms, near Aviemore in Speyside. The site lies on the western flank of the Cairngorms and is the catchment of the Allt a' Mharcaidh (a site in the ECN freshwater network). It is part of the Invereshie and Inshriach National Nature Reserve, within the Cairngorms National Park, and covers some 10 km2. The site is supported by a consortium of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the Natural Environment Research Council (through the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) and The James Hutton Institute (JHI). ECN monitoring at the site is co-ordinated by CEH.
This is the first ECN site in the UK's sub-arctic zone and is an important link not only to other upland ECN sites but to sites in the Alps and Pyrenees (GLORIA network) and also to networks in the Arctic (SCANNET network and INTERACT project).
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Research access to ECN Cairngorms is encouraged via the INTERACT Trans-National Access Programme. Read more... |
