Community added value of the extension to NAS

CARBOMONT is amongst the first CO₂ flux networks for non-forest ecosystems, which are badly underrepresented in contemporary European flux networks. However, there is still considerable lack of data on the carbon cycling of non-forest mountain ecosystems in the NAS, in particular with regard to the effects of changes in land use in context with their current and projected socio-economic development.

Europe is an extremely varied continent in terms of different climates, soils, vegetation, land-uses and environmental pressures. Much of this variation can be characterised by latitudinal, longitudinal and altitudinal gradients. Clearly it is essential that European research on the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol is integrated into this European-wide picture. The transect approach of CARBOMONT is a conceptual tool that aims to take account of this variation within Europe that enables conclusions to be made at the European scale.
CARBOMONT will also encourage the regional dimension in Europe. It provides comparative research concerning the different environmental and socio-economic background conditions in key mountain regions of Europe, in particular for the Alpine area, the Italian Apennine, the Spanish Pyrenees, the Scottish Highlands, the Swedish Scandes and the Finnish Fjeld Lappland. The extension of CARBOMONT to NAS will contribute essentially to the understanding of carbon cycling of non-forest mountain ecosystems in the NAS, in particular with regard to the effects of changes in land use in context with their current and projected socio-economic development.

In addition the multi-disciplinary conception provides the following community added values:

• the European-wide co-operation of most partner teams in different study sites along the CARBOMONT transect. This will increase the knowledge transfer and the cohesion of scientific and technical development between different regions in Europe
  
• the combination of complementary expertise in different European countries and regions
  
• the interdisciplinary contribution of several partners to most research topics
  
• the scientific collaboration of all partners in workpackage 6 (application and dissemination of results), providing their complementary approaches
  
• the set-up of regional focus groups of stakeholders (including decision makers, land owners, spatial planners) to help identify concerns and pressures on the investigated European mountain regions and the possible effects of policy changes on land use
  
• the close co-operation with concerned industries (e.g. agriculture, forestry, tourism) and governmental administration at regional and national scale.
  

Community added value will also arise from networking and/or co-ordination with national, European and international research programmes. Most members of the CARBOMONT consortium are contributing to other international, European and national projects / concerted actions / scientific boards concerned with tasks of global changes (e.g. COST 627 project on “Carbon Storage in European Grasslands”, COSTE21 “Mitigation of greenhouse gases by the carbon deposition in European forests”, R&TD CARBOEUROFLUX, BEMA, VOCAMOD, EU PHARE, EU TMR programmes SOCRATES, LEONARDO, and the EU-programmes INTERREG II and RECITE II). And finally CARBOMONT can be seen as a European research initiative helping to found a long-term network for carbon pools and fluxes in mountain areas of Europe which could be linked with other projects arising from FW 5.

The extension of the existing CARBOMONT project to include five partner teams from the NAS supports the intention of the EU to better link the NAS to the EU member states and vice versa (increased networking between EU and NAS centres, increased scope, contribution to capacity building through attracting young researchers, increased linkage with scientific, economic and social environment of the NAS).