Urban Long-Term Ecological Monitoring: Identifying Best Practices and Existing Efforts

Following an interdisciplinary workshop organized by Urban Ecosystem Science working group at Technische Universität Berlin in 2025, a report was published summarizing the current long-term ecological monitoring efforts taking place in Berlin, Germany. These efforts include a range of realms from atmospheric, aquatic, and biodiversity monitoring with direct implication and interplay related to urban cooling services, urban re-development, governance and policy, and environmental ideology (Churkina et al., 2025). In contrast to numerous long-term environmental monitoring projects in remote or ‘natural’ areas, urban sites have been historically under-represented, and standards have not yet been established to qualify urban environmental monitoring as being high-quality for the context. In particular, urban projects face unique challenges related to disturbance and data quality, while also presenting unique demands related to the inclusion of human-related and socially relevant data. More so, environmental outcomes and social processes are inherently intertwined and interdependent, and urban environmental monitoring must include strong socially relevant data collection, as well as public outreach. As such, in addition to a goal of improving and coordinating the current environmental monitoring efforts in Berlin, we have developed two further objectives in order to 1) define key criteria that yield a high quality interdisciplinary urban long-term monitoring site, and 2) identify all existing long-term urban monitoring projects globally and assess them based on these criteria, with over 200 projects in over 30 countries already identified. Overall, this work will help to establish guidelines for high-quality interdisciplinary long-term urban environmental monitoring, particularly relevant in an increasingly urbanized world, where we face a wide range of pressing environmental concerns.