News archive

SITES Röbäcksdalen's SMURF Program Enhances Understanding of Ley Grassland Productivity and Management

06 November 2024

As leys (sown grasslands grown in rotation with annual grain crops) constitute upwards of 75% of arable land use in northern Sweden, they represent an important feature of the region’s landscape. SITES Röbäcksdalen is situated within Röbäcksslätten, the largest continuous agricultural land area in northern Sweden. Röbäcksdalen’s research infrastructure includes over 280 hectares of agricultural land, most of which is conventionally managed by the research barn to provide feed for its dairy cows.

Call for Applications: SITES AquaNet 2025!

28 October 2024

Are you interested in conducting mesocosm experiments on lakes? SITES AquaNet provides a standardized infrastructure for running mesocosm studies across various lakes. This system features floating platforms with mesocosm enclosures, automatic sensors linked to a data-logging system, and handheld sensors for precise measurements. In this video you can find more information about SITES AquaNet!

October rainstorm impacts two SITES stations near Umeå

23 October 2024

A heavy rainstorm, exceeding 91 millimeters of precipitation over just a few days, caused flooding of the SITES Water infrastructure at Röbäcksdalen near Umeå. After four days of rain, the storm surge from Degernäsbäcken and Röbäcken carved new routes across normally dry land.

The flooding damage at Röbäcksdalen was limited to two specific locations, site 1 and site 6: at site 1, the flooding caused temporary data loss from sensors; at site 6, one ring of a concrete water pipe tipped over, requiring work to retrieve it from the bottom of Röbäcken.

SITES Spectral to Launch New Phenocam Products for Vegetation Studies

14 October 2024

The Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science (SITES), through its Spectral thematic program, is introducing enhanced phenocam-derived products. These updates include snow presence detection in Level 3 time-series data, improved weighted means for vegetation indices, and extended data availability for various regions of interest. These products are critical for advancing vegetation and phenological studies across ecosystems such as farmlands, forests, and wetlands.

September Highlights from Svartberget

03 October 2024

Busy September at Svartberget Research Station!

From 19th to 26th September, 30 PhD students from 7 countries arrive to Vindeln for the Watershed Ecology and Biogeochemistry course 2024. Over six intense days, students participated in presentations, poster discussions, and field visits, enhancing their understanding of key topics such as:

October Collaboration in Focus: the lake Bolmen and AquaNet provide new insights into ecosystem disturbances and recovery

02 October 2024

Bolmen Research Station, owned by Sydvatten and operated by Sweden Water Research, is a SITES associated station that participates in the AquaNet lake mesocosom experiments. The experiments provide knowledge on how the lake Bolmen responds to disturbances and environmental change, which is important to ensure that it remains a reliable water supply in the future.

SITES Water Data updates

25 September 2024

Hot off the press, the secretariat together with the team from Skogaryd Research Catchment just updated one of the core time series within the station´s SITES Water program. You can now access all water chemistry data through the end of 2022 coming from Skogaryd´s extensive monitoring in their sub-catchments (see overview map). 

Open access to the chemistry data from the streams and the lake Erssjön can be found here: