Interdisciplinary Geo-ecological Research across Time Scales in the Northeast German Lowland Observatory (TERENO-NE)

Abstract

The Northeast German Lowland Observatory (TERENO-NE) was established to investigate the regional impact of global change. TERENO-NE focuses on the Northeast German lowlands, for which a high vulnerability has been determined due to increasing temperatures and decreasing amounts of precipitation projected for the coming decades. In order to facilitate in-depth evaluations of the effects of regional and global changes and to separate the effects of natural and anthropogenic drivers in the region, seven sites were chosen for comprehensive monitoring, and at selected sites proxies from geoarchives were used to substantially extend the instrumental records back in time. It is this combination of diverse disciplines working across different time scales that makes the observatory TERENO-NE a unique observation platform. This article provides information about the general characteristics of the observatory, including the seven monitoring sites and presents examples of interdisciplinary research activities at some of these sites. The manuscript also illustrates how monitoring improves our process understanding, how remote sensing techniques are fine-tuned by the most comprehensive ground-truthing site DEMMIN, how soil erosion dynamics have evolved, how greenhouse gas monitoring of rewetted peatlands can reveal unexpected mechanisms and how proxy data provides a long-term perspective of current ongoing changes.