Download 1) List and prioritize biological and environmental measurements

1) List and prioritize biological and environmental measurements that ideally should
be made at each NPN site.
Major recommendations:
Collocate with NERON (and other opportunities if at all possible)
A strategy for deciding on additional measurements:
Use of NPN observations
Additional
observations
For NERON sites (but strategy of partnering/collocation needs to be expanded to
include other networks, like Ameriflux, etc):
Climate/weather (continuous):
Temperature*
Precipitation*
Relative Humidity** (dewpoint)
Direct vs. diffuse insolation
Snow depth/water content
Wind**
Global Radiation**
Soil moisture**
[CO2]
Soil temperature**
Webcam of plant
Occasional:
First frost
Hard freeze
Freeze/thaw
Leaf optical/spectral properties
Leaf biochemistry
Soil chemistry
* will be collected by NERON
** may be collected by NERON
( ) We need to add for NPN
For minimal observers:
Continuous logging:
Temperature
Soil moisture – simple enough, cheap enough, good enough?
Annual observations:
360º (8 pt) photographs of setting and plant
Soil chemistry (nutrients)
How to keep track of water applied?
All sites:
Regularly:
Site characteristics (canopy, topography, position, plant size, soil type, etc.) - metadata
Surrounding characteristics (360º photos)
Land use history
Heterogeneity of the above characteristics over the site “footprint” (representativeness)
Invasives – presence/absence
Snowmelt/runoff observations
Motion/audio detectors for animals
Web cam for phenology observations
Lake/river freeze/thaw
Leaf biochemical properties
Satellite observations
Synoptic scale observations
VI
LAI/fPAR
LST
High resolution spectra (radiometry) – leaf optical properties
Pheno-spectral library for different plant communities/locations
Suggestions:
Strong endorsement from Ken Crawford and Sharon Le Duc
Need total season observations and not be hung up on start of season
Co-location with Ameriflux sites (about 90 in US)
LTERs
National Parks
Look at the GLOBE program for protocols/reporting schemes
These observations may vary from site to site, depending on location – perhaps there will
be different levels of sites (some with more detailed observations)
Should there be super-sites for remote sensing validation?
Rama says we should have as many as possible, rather than as good as possible.
Should there be redundant measures to assure quality?
Remote sensing-oriented observations (at a more extensive scale) could be a one-time
(one- or two-year) study, vs. an ongoing program.
Use ex-COOP volunteers for NPN observations
Commissioning of new NERON stations will begin in Summer, 2006