Longterm carbon and water balance of a coniferous forest

Long-term measurements of the carbon dioxide (CO2), water and energy exchange between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere are required in order to diagnose and project the direction, magnitude and drivers of land-atmosphere feedbacks. Long-term measurements require a long-term funding perspective in order to guarantee the uninterrupted collection of standardised high-quality data and their archival in open-access data repositories. The overarching objective of the proposed project is to initiate long-term measurements of the CO2, water and energy exchange between a mountain coniferous forest and the atmosphere at a newly established Austrian forest field infrastructure. During the coming four years, the focus of the research activities will be to determine the components and drivers of the (i) carbon and (ii) water balance of the investigated forest ecosystem. To this end the project combines continuous automated and episodic manual measurements in the field, with the development and application of ecological models.