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

The Science of the Total Environment
Shaoxia XiaBojie Fu

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 in...Continue Reading

Citations

Sep 26, 2020·Environmental Science and Pollution Research International·Chenggang Li, Yong Gan
Sep 7, 2019·The Science of the Total Environment·Chunli WangJianbin Guo

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