A global, cross-disciplinary inventory of mountain monitoring infrastructure

Multi-variate in situ observations from the Earth’s extensive mountain regions are crucial for a plethora of important applications, such as ground truthing remotely sensed data and downscaling climate model outputs. However, as a result of their inhospitable conditions and remoteness, mountains are extremely challenging environments in which to conduct systematic, long-term, and spatially dense in situ monitoring of bio-physical processes, leading to various real or perceived deficiencies in mountain data coverage (or “data gaps”). Gaining a thorough appreciation of these coverage deficiencies is complicated by the very heterogenous nature of the in situ mountain monitoring “landscape”; many different institutions and initiatives, often research-orientated as opposed to operational, employ a high diversity of techniques for a range of different applications. As such, it is currently extremely challenging for stakeholders to efficiently obtain an overview of who is measuring what, where, when, how, and why in a given region of interest. Information on the coverage of data beyond core climatic variables such as air temperature or precipitation is especially lacking. In this context, we present the GEO Mountains In Situ Inventory of Observational Infrastructure. The latest version (v2) contains key metadata for over 51,000 mountain monitoring stations, station networks, experimental basins, or other monitoring locations (e.g. repeated vegetation monitoring sites) across the world’s mountains. It can be viewed using a web mapping application, with the underlying table also available for direct download. Via a system that enables individuals or institutions to propose additions and improvements, we intend to continue developing the inventory in an iterative, community-based fashion. Overall, this effort should expedite access to the corresponding observations (e.g., time-series), reduce infrastructural redundancy, and improve interdisciplinary collaboration around existing sites. Once further expanded, the inventory may also facilitate more extensive and thematically broad data coverage analyses than those hitherto possible, which in turn could inform monitoring infrastructure installation and maintenance investment decisions. In conclusion, we will reflect on potential links between the inventory and a recently proposed set of Essential Mountain Climate Variables.

GEO Mountains (2022). Inventory of in situ mountain observational infrastructure, v2.0. https://www.geomountains.org/resources/resources-surveys/inventory-of-in-situ-observational-infrastructure. doi: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14899845.v2