Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Department of Community Ecology, Theodor-Lieser-Str. 4, 06120, Halle, Germany.
University of Bucharest, Research Center for Systems Ecology and Sustainability, Spl. Independentei 91 - 95, 050095, Bucharest, Romania.
J Environ Manage. 2019 Nov 15;250:109479. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.109479. Epub 2019 Sep 6.
Distributed environmental research infrastructures are important to support assessments of the effects of global change on landscapes, ecosystems and society. These infrastructures need to provide continuity to address long-term change, yet be flexible enough to respond to rapid societal and technological developments that modify research priorities. We used a horizon scanning exercise to identify and prioritize emerging research questions for the future development of ecosystem and socio-ecological research infrastructures in Europe. Twenty research questions covered topics related to (i) ecosystem structures and processes, (ii) the impacts of anthropogenic drivers on ecosystems, (iii) ecosystem services and socio-ecological systems and (iv), methods and research infrastructures. Several key priorities for the development of research infrastructures emerged. Addressing complex environmental issues requires the adoption of a whole-system approach, achieved through integration of biotic, abiotic and socio-economic measurements. Interoperability among different research infrastructures needs to be improved by developing standard measurements, harmonizing methods, and establishing capacities and tools for data integration, processing, storage and analysis. Future research infrastructures should support a range of methodological approaches including observation, experiments and modelling. They should also have flexibility to respond to new requirements, for example by adjusting the spatio-temporal design of measurements. When new methods are introduced, compatibility with important long-term data series must be ensured. Finally, indicators, tools, and transdisciplinary approaches to identify, quantify and value ecosystem services across spatial scales and domains need to be advanced.
分布式环境研究基础设施对于支持评估全球变化对景观、生态系统和社会的影响至关重要。这些基础设施需要提供连续性以应对长期变化，但又要有足够的灵活性来应对快速的社会和技术发展，从而改变研究重点。我们使用了一种前沿扫描练习来确定和优先考虑未来欧洲生态系统和社会生态研究基础设施发展的新兴研究问题。二十个研究问题涵盖了与（i）生态系统结构和过程、（ii）人为驱动因素对生态系统的影响、（iii）生态系统服务和社会生态系统以及（iv）方法和研究基础设施相关的主题。出现了一些研究基础设施发展的关键优先事项。解决复杂的环境问题需要采用整体系统方法，通过整合生物、非生物和社会经济测量来实现。需要通过开发标准测量、协调方法以及建立数据集成、处理、存储和分析的能力和工具来提高不同研究基础设施之间的互操作性。未来的研究基础设施应支持一系列方法，包括观察、实验和建模。它们还应具有灵活性，以应对新的要求，例如通过调整测量的时空设计。当引入新方法时，必须确保与重要的长期数据系列的兼容性。最后，需要推进跨空间尺度和领域识别、量化和评估生态系统服务的指标、工具和跨学科方法。
