Whole system Approach for In-situ & Long-term environmental System research on life supporting systems (WAILS)

Environmental research is challenged by the question, how lilfe supporting systems (ecosystems, the critical zone) and their services will develop in the next decades. However, addressing changes in structure and function requires an integrated approach from the subsurface to the vegetation and atmosphere, across scales and ecosystems, and combining observation, ecosystem theories and modelling. Such integrated approach affects most aspects of how environmental research and monitoring are shaped, comprising seamless collaborations amongst involved disciplines, the interactions of actual research with other stakeholders, research insfrastructure design and operation and – as a key factor – the structures and rulesets of related funding mechanisms.

A common conceptual framework is highly relevant for catalyzing integration efforts and implementing complementary modules of research infrastructures serving various user groups and disciplines towards a fundamental understanding and improved predictions of how structure and functions of ecosystems and ecosystem services will evolve and adapt under global change, with climate change, land use and societal change as key drivers.

Triggered by the challenge to streamline the ecoystem, critical zone and socio-ecological reasearch infrastructure at the Pan-European level in close collaboration with other ongoing European environmental RIs like ICOS and LifeWatch, the eLTER Research Infrastructure (RI) therefore strives for a Whole system Approach for In-situ & Long-term environmental System research on life supporting systems (WAILS), combining humans-environment interactions at a given scale and cross-scale interactions and feed-back loops across scales, which will be presented.