Long-term environmental change

An important part of the research is to separate changes caused by human activities from natural changes and variation. Data from our environmental monitoring programs, some of which have data from more than 50 years, serve as an important basis.

Examples of research projects

• ARCTIC-BIODIVER – filling gaps in Arctic freshwater biodiversity knowledge
• Effects of large-scale, climate-mediated oligotrophication on the food webs of Arctic and alpine lakes
• Forest ditch cleaning and its effect on mobilization of an old soil carbon store
• LEAF-PAD – Land Use Effects on Aquatic Fluxes of Greenhouse Gases from Ponds and Ditches 
• SURVED – Forest bioenergy harvest impact on soil nutrient and acidity status simulated with HD-MINTEQ
• Wetland restoration and its effect on brownification of surface waters

Read more

• Trend lakes and Trend watercourses – monitoring programs for long-term change
• IM, Integrated Monitoring – a program aimed at detecting and monitoring changes and the cause and effect of changes, at both ecosystem level and for part of ecosystems
• LTER Sweden – a network for Swedish research and monitoring stations conducting long term ecological research and monitoring
• SITES - Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science
• SLU Knowledge bank: Considerable uncertainty about the speed of weathering (in Swedish)
• SLU Knowledge bank: Oligotrophication an unknown problem (in Swedish)
• SLU Knowledge bank: Reduced acidification opens up for less liming (in Swedish)
• SLU Knowledge bank: Will the forest get enough nutrients if we harvest more biofuels? (in Swedish)
• SLU news: Highlighted article about brownification (in Swedish)
• "The color of water" is a brochure published in 2003 and directed towards drinking water producers in the Nordic countries. The brochure only contains data until 2002 but gives a historic perspective since it includes measurements made as early as 1916. The brochure was also translated into Finnish ("Veden väri"), and Norwegian ("Vannfarge").