Integrerad monitoring (IM) in Sweden

The Integrated monitoring (IM) infrastructure is part of the Convention on Long-Range Air Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) within the region of UN ECE and forms a network in about 20 countries. In Sweden, the monitoring and assessment are carried out in four intensively monitored protected forest catchments for complete ecosystem investigations.

The sites are also part of the LTER Europe network (Long-Term Ecosystem Research) and the IM site Aneboda is part of the Swedish national infrastructure SITES (Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science).

The scope of the IM programme is to monitor effects of air pollution with climate change interactions on element cycling and biodiversity in natural forest ecosystems. Impacts are assessed by intense monitoring of hydrological, chemical and biological variables. The long-term monitoring has achieved consistent time series of high quality data used in modelling, policy evaluations and international reporting.

Results from the IM progamme are also used to design measures for emission control. The data base is freely available.

The IM programme is run jointly by SLU, SGU (Swedish Geological Survey) and IVL (Swedish Environmental Research Institute) on behalf of the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.