CRC Press Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Infrastructures: Challenges and Opportunities

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Infrastructures: Challenges and Opportunities reveals how environmental research infrastructures (RIs) provide new valuable insights on ecological processes that cannot be realized by more traditional short-term funding cycles and are integral to understand our changing world. This book bonds the latest state-of-the-science knowledge on environmental RIs, the challenges in creating them, their place in addressing scientific frontiers, and the new perspectives they bear. Each chapter is thoughtfully invested with fresh viewpoints from the environmental RI vantage as the authors explore and explain many topics such as the rationale and challenges in global change, field and modeling platforms, new tools, challenges in data management, distilling information into knowledge, and new developments in large-scale RIs. This work serves an advantageous guide for academics and practitioners alike who aim to deepen their knowledge in the field of science and project management, and logistics operations. Review "A long overdue and fine analysis of the importance of ecosystems and ecosystem research in this time of global change. This should be required reading for any one concerned about achieving truly sustainable development."― Thomas E. Lovejoy, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States "…is a timely and comprehensive account of the emergence of large-scale ecological research infrastructure, worldwide. A fortunate convergence between the need to address emerging ecological problems with the technology to understand pattern and process at ecosystem scale has led to dramatic progress in this field. The ability to combine automated sensors, remote sensing, computational power and data management techniques has provided ecologists with a whole new toolbox. It brings with it new challenges of organization and design in order to provide an infrastructure which is fit-for-use, multi-institutional, adaptive and durable. This volume covers the learning achieved so far in implementing research platforms of this kind." ― Robert J Scholes, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa "… a very timely book. Large-scale infrastructures are essential to advance our understanding of the Earth System at a variety of scales. The establishment of these is often difficult as it conflicts with traditional short term funding cycles. This book comes at a time when several such large-scale ecological infrastructures are indeed being established worldwide based on a plethora of new scientific ideas and. It deals however not only with the science questions driving the need for infrastructures, but importantly also with crucial issues such as data quality and accessibility and the introduction and development of new technologies. The editors have done a great job in producing this much-needed overview that will enable a new generation of scientists and other users to appreciate the need, value and benefits of large scale infrastructures." About the Author Dr. habil. Abad Chabbi, Director of Research at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) is a plant ecologist and soil biogeochemist. He worked at the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; the Faculty of Environmental Science in Cottbus, Germany; the University of Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris, France; and at INRA, where he has been leading the National Observatory for Environmental Research-Agro-Ecosystems, Biogeochemical Cycles and Biodiversity (www.soere-acbb.com) since 2009. His current research centers on understanding the link between soil carbon sequestration, nutrient availability and stoichiometry in the plant–soil system, biodiversity, and the influence that land use management and climate change may have on these dynamics. During his career, Dr. Chabbi coordinated a number of international multidisciplinary projects, chaired and organized numerous international symposiums,