eLTER RI makes it to European ESFRI 2018 Roadmap
 The European ecosystem research infrastructure being developed by LTER-Europe and Critical Zone Observatories has achieved a major milestone, paving the way for its further development. The pan-European eLTER Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI) has been included on the ESFRI 2018 roadmap, meaning it can now receive funding to support the work needed to turn the vision into reality.
When fully operational, eLTER RI will be a permanently funded and managed distributed infrastructure of field stations covering European environmental zones. The infrastructure will support high quality science on the functioning of ecosystems and will provide a range of services to end users, including access to highly instrumented and expertly staffed sites and to their long-term environmental observation data. Additional services, such as data synthesis and modelling, support for research and technological development, and training programmes, will be provided via Topic Centres.
The UK input to the process is being led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, which coordinates ECN, the UK LTER network.
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Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship to continue long-term experiments in the British Uplands
 Professor Rob Marrs, from the University of Liverpool's School of Environmental Sciences, has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship to continue his pioneering research on the management of British upland landscapes.
The award will support very long-term experiments of rewilding across a series of vegetation types where the effects of management removal will be compared to “business-as-usual” management. This rewilding work will be undertaken at the Environmental Change Network’s site at Moor House National Nature Reserve in the north Pennines, where Professor Marrs – a long-standing member of ECN's Scientific and Technical Advisory Group – has been researching for almost 40 years. The experiments are unique in that some were set up in the mid-1950s through to 1967, but have been continually monitored up to 2016. The award will also allow the continuation of long-term experiments on bracken control in the Peak District.
[Image courtesy of University of Liverpool]
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New social research method to be tested at ECN Cairngorms
 Nature Walks for Science, a new method to understand peoples' perception of nature, will be tested at the ECN site in the Cairngorms this summer. The exercise ill take place at the site between 20 July and 6 August 2018 in the Allt a’Mharcaidh catchment, a well-studied valley in the Cairngorms National Park. It is aimed at capturing peoples' perceptions of the natural environment, particularly those vague and intangible aspects of the natural world that are appreciated by those who enjoy walking in the countryside. Such understanding, it is hoped, will enable better management of such natural resources.
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Featured Publication
 Holmberg, M., et al. (2018). Modelling study of soil C, N and pH response to air pollution and climate change using European LTER site observations. Science of the Total Environment, 640-641, 387-399.
This study used meteorological and soil solution data collected at two ECN forest sites (Wytham and Alice Holt) and over 20 other long-term research sites in a Europe-wide modelling study. The work was done in the EU H2020 eLTER project.
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Featured Site
 Scoat Tarn in the English Lake District is a typical mountain corrie lake, being small and deep with an area of 5.2 ha and a maximum depth of 20 m. The lake lies in a west facing valley at an altitude of 602 m, and drains into Wastwater via the Nether Beck. Monitoring by the UK Upland Waters Monitoring Network shows the site is now in the process of chemical recovery, with a substantial decline in inorganic aluminium and a slight increase in pH over the last two decades.
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