SITES Thematic Programs are one form of collaboration, connecting individual stations in order to support and enhance research on both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems as well as offering open data from long-term monitoring and experimental installations.
The ongoing work on estimating the discharge in the streams at Röbäcksdalens field station was initiated in the spring of 2023. At the time, the final phase of the snowmelt runoff was generating a peak stream flow. At Röbäcksdalen, a tracer is used to measure the discharge. The tracer is common table salt and it is injected (the mass balance method) into the stream, generating a dispersed cloud of conductivity change in the stream. The change in conductivity is then used to estimate the discharge.
This week SITES Water and SITES AquaNet field and lab techs met at Erken Laboratory for a joint workshop across the two Thematic Programs. The workshop focused on the current status and development of SITES Water and SITES AquaNet, along with sessions specific for the technical staff at the station. The sessions addressed life as field and lab tech, field and lab protocols, sensor calibrations, greenhouse sampling and hydrological measurements. The group also took a walk on ice-covered lake Erken for a hands on snow and ice measurement demonstration by the Erken staff.
At Erken Laboratory, the extensive year-round lake monitoring program on Malma Island provides valuable data to the global lake modelling community. Several Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) initiatives have utilized high-frequency data from Erken to understand lakes in a changing global environment.
To kick-off the year, SITES leadership team, including the Secretariat, the SITES Station Managers and Thematic Program leads, met in-person at SITES Grimsö Wildlife Research Station this week (30-31 Jan 2024). The meeting provided an opportunity to reflect on SITES accomplishments from 2023 as well as strategize and prioritize for 2024.
At Skogaryd Research Catchment (SRC), the flow and balance of nutrients are studied in various ecosystems and across the whole catchment. Since January, deposition of nutrients has been measured, inching towards complete nutrient budgets.
The ongoing process with uploading data to the SITES Data Portal continues. For Asa Research Station, as ice beings to settle on lake Feresjön, the SITES Water monitoring is reduced from biweekly sampling to monthly. This allows for more time to process and upload SITES Water data.
The SITES 2024 Calendar theme is “SITES Collaborations”. SITES aims to promote excellent ecosystem research and high-quality data that support this research. This includes collaborations that increase the number of projects that utilize multiple SITES stations and connect between aquatic and terrestrial processes. Further, SITES aims to strengthen the collaborations with relevant research infrastructures and networks across Sweden and internationally, including data infrastructures and services.
The last SITES data retreat of the year is taking place in Umeå this week with Svartberget Research Station. Updates to include the 2023 data to the stream level and discharge at the five locations existing on the SITES Data Portal (Catchment locations, C2, C4, C5, C6 and C7) have already been made. Stream level and discharge data from additional locations will be added to the SITES Data Portal soon! The lake water level data from Stortjärn has also been updated for 2023 and other data updates from the lake are in the works.
The SITES 2023 Calendar theme is “Data in Focus”. The openly available data produced within SITES and stored on the SITES Data Portal is the “golden thread” of the infrastructure, allowing users access to ecosystem data that covers diverse habitats and climate zones across geographical gradients in Sweden. Each month follow along as we highlight a unique SITES dataset.