The highly instrumented forest site Lehrforst Rosalia is to be transformed into a cooperative digital infrastructure for ecosystem research, promoting the development of strategies to address climate change and providing a basis for action options for political decision-makers. The modernization and digitization measures will enable the inclusion of the Rosalia site in the European eLTER RI network (European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research), thereby positioning Austrian ecological long-term research internationally. The interdisciplinary approach prepares us for the challenges of ecological and digital transformation and accelerates the implementation of FAIR principles in Austria. The infrastructure is a flagship project, offering added value for universities and their teaching. Thus, this outdoor laboratory will become a sustainable part of a forward-looking research infrastructure with open digital access.

Objectives of the initiative

The main objective is the expansion and digitization of the in-situ research infrastructure in the Lehrforst Rosalia for integrative ecosystem research in the context of climate change and eLTER-RI.

Further specific goals are the following:

• Modernization of high-quality infrastructure equipment for innovative research
• Establishment of Prime Methods to meet the criteria of a Category 1 Site within the eLTER RI network
• Digitization of the entire research infrastructure, including data collection, data transfer, and data processing

Work packages

• WP1: Coordination (research concept, set-up and climate change experiments)
• WP2: Digitalization (data management and open science)
• WP3: Geosphere (biogeochemistry and soil hydrology)
• WP4: Hydrosphere (catchment hydrology)
• WP5: Atmosphere (measuring towers and climate stations)

Actual states of the initiative

Several monitoring stations in the Lehrforst Rosalia have been made digitally accessible by laying nearly two kilometers of power and fiber optic cables. This enables the recording and retrieval of ecological observations of key ecosystem parameters in real time. Installation of new instruments and automated recording systems will allow continuous, high-resolution measurements of greenhouse gas exchange between the biosphere and atmosphere. The data transfer is now being automatized to facilitate the transmission of collected datasets to the eLTER network (European Long-Term Ecological Research).

Synergy potential for other universities

The digitalization initiative will be beneficial for universities and research institutions involved in ecosystem monitoring, especially those managing eLTER sites. Automated workflows developed in this project should contribute to set a basis for common data reporting and processing scheme to feed future eLTER data nodes. This project builds on long-term collaborations between Austrian institutions and further allows for the consolidation of a network aiming at monitoring the impacts of climate change on ecosystems and their services