Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Infrastructures

"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."
— Han Dolman, Free University Amsterdam, Netherlands

"This volume describes how to approach contemporary global environmental challenges with large and integrated experimental and monitoring infrastructure, including the scientific and engineering platforms necessary to acquire, evaluate, maintain, interpret, and synthesize vast amounts of data in order to produce useful knowledge. Building and connecting research infrastructure across the globe is a frontier science and this book, edited by Abbad Chabbi and Hank Loescher provides valuable lessons learned to date from a number of aspects of networked activities worldwide."
— Jill Baron, U.S. Geological Survey, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA