The KwaZulu-Natal Bight Sentinel Site (KZNBSS) is a coastal observatory situated on the subtropical east coast of South Africa. The KZNBSS forms part of distributed network of sentinel sites for LTER coordinated by the Shallow Marine and Coastal Research Infrastructure (SMCRI) initiative of the Department of Science and Innovation of South Africa. The site is in its deployment phase with the first instruments launched in February 2022. The network comprises 6 Underwater Temperature Recorder Arrays (UTR) deployed offshore and 3 shallow UTRs deployed in permanently submerged rocky shore gullies for the facilitation of shallow water temperature observations. The site encompasses a coastal reach of 150 km that includes the uThukela MPA to the northeast. Deployment of additional instruments (2023-2025) near the City of Durban will include an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and a METOCEAN Coastal Observation Buoy. A Pelagic Ecosystem LTER Programme will also be established in partnership with regional institutions and existing research projects.

The ASCA shelf and tall moorings extend 200 km offshore of Hamburg just south of East London on the East coast of South Africa, along the decending TOPEX/Jason satellite ground track # 96, through the core of the Agulhas Current, with Current- and Pressure-recording Inverted Echo Sounders (CPIES) measurements extending the array to 300 km offshore. There are two shelf and seven full-depth tall moorings, interspersed with five CPIES, measuring pressure, current velocities, temperatures and salinities.

The Northeast US Shelf (NES) ecosystem spans the Middle Atlantic Bight and Gulf of Maine, is a large portion of the NW Atlantic Shelves Province, and is in a coastal biome. The waters over the NES provide an array of ecosystem services including fishing, energy development, shipping, waste disposal, recreation, and conservation. The NES ecosystem, like other productive temperate shelf ecosystems, is characterized by strong seasonality along with high levels of variability in physical forcing at timescales from days to decades, including climate impacts.

In the NGA study area, the biological community is highly productive. The lower levels of the food chain (phytoplankton and zooplankton) support the iconic fish, crabs, seabirds, and marine mammals of Alaska. Large increases in phytoplankton during the spring and sustained production during the summer support zooplankton that transfer energy up the food chain. Substantial amounts of this organic matter also sink to feed animals on the sea bottom.

The National Institute of Oceanography (IOLR) is located in Haifa (Tel Shikmona) on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The institute engages in research and development in marine sciences and provides information and professional advice to the government and the public sector in the context of the sustainable utilization and conservation of Israel’s marine and coastal resources. The oceanographic studies at the institute are engaged in research, monitoring, and collecting environmental data in the Mediterranean Sea, and in studying natural and unnatural processes. The research topics at the institute include subjects such as; flow and mixing processes; oceanographic models; material cycles; sediment transportation and geological processes; the structure of the seabed; physiology, immunology, and ecology of marine organisms and the populations’ dynamics; the biological diversity in offshore waters and deep seas; effects of human activity on the open sea and coastal environment. IOLR operates advanced instruments and national infrastructures for marine research and monitoring, such as; the national research vessel “Bat Galim”, small ships, and autonomous underwater gliders. A variety of mapping, sampling, data collection, and independent systems are placed at sea for continuous monitoring of environmental variables. In addition, ecological monitoring (community structure, biological diversity, etc.) is carried out in several habitats at a monthly to yearly frequency as follows: • Seasonal ecological monitoring of the Benthos community of the vegetation tables in four sites from north to south since 2009 (also includes a monthly sampling of the water - chlorophyll, nutrients, alkalinity, DIC, temp., pH). • Seasonal ecological monitoring of the benthos community (fish, and biotic cover) of the shallow reefs in the Shekmona/Rash Carmel area. • Annual ecological monitoring of the mesophotic reefs (90-100 meters) at the top of Carmel and the shallow reef. • Monthly zooplankton monitoring at the Hadera station • Monitoring the fish society and the invertebrate community in sandy bottoms • Deep sea monitoring IOLR operates the National Marine Information Center - ISRAMAR, which collects, records, and distributes data and information regarding Israel’s marine environment.

This site experienced peat extraction. It contains Sphagnum plots and Vaccinium oxycoccos, but the peatland is dominated by graminoids forming tussocks.

The site is equipped with two fixed stations: a meteo-oceanographic buoy (E1 buoy) and an elastic beacon equipped with meteo-oceanographic sensors (S1-GB beacon). The fixed stations were deployed in the framework of a multidisciplinary research project that uses automated stations to study the marine environment, in cooperation between the Insitute of Marine Science (ISMAR) in Bologna (CNR) and other public and governmental Research Institutes. The S1 buoy was installed in 2004 at the Po river Delta and recently (2015) implemented being now an elastic beacon. The E1 buoy is off the coast of Rimini town measuring in near real-time meteo and physico-chemical oceanographic parameters at different depths in the water column. It records every 5-10-15-30 minutes atmospheric pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed , wind gust, wind direction, net solar radiation, water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, fluorescence, turbidity, speed and direction of the currents, height, direction and period of the wawes . The data are transmitted via GSM and downloaded (on average every 2-4 hours) at the Data Center of the Institute of ISMAR in Bologna. Data are daily validated and analysed, in order to be used for different studies.

The separation line of the semi-enclosed northern basin from the rest of the Adriatic Sea is conventionally defined at the 100 m isobath, at about 43°20’N, from where the bottom depth moderately decreases up to the northern coast reaching the smallest average depth in the northernmost protrusion of the basin, the Gulf of Trieste (surface area 600 km2, volume 9.5 km3, maximal depth approx. 25 m). The oceanographic properties of Gulf of Trieste are affected by water mass exchange with the northern Adriatic at the open western boundary, by local meteorological conditions that induce a pronounced seasonal cycle of seawater temperature (6 - 28 oC) and by the largest freshwater input, the Soča (Isonzo) River. The latter enters the Gulf on the shallower northern coastline with an average flow of 123 m3 s-1 and represents the major source of land-borne nutrients in this coastal zone, in particular of nitrate, whereas inputs along the south-eastern coast are comparatively small (contributing less than 10% to the freshwater balance in the Gulf). The circulation pattern is variable, however the prevailing ENE wind is the most efficient for the water exchange, especially during winter. These physical features, in addition to freshwater inputs, are ultimately reflected in the distribution of nutrients and in the seasonal and inter-annual variability of plankton communities, primary production but also in events of hypoxia/anoxia and mucous macroaggregates, which have characterised the whole northern Adriatic basin in the recent past. The waters of the Gulf of Trieste have been monitored for several physical-chemical and biological variables since 70s’ but the longest and most continuous data set of biological variables is represented by the phytoplankton time series, which started in 1990 when the national monitoring programme has become operational (set by Slovenian Environmental Agency). From 2007 onwards, the monitoring programme complies with the regulations of the EU Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC).

The Gulf of Venice is a gulf that borders modern-day Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, and is at the north of the Adriatic Sea between the delta of the Po river in northern Italy and the Istria peninsula in Croatia. The site is under a heavy antropic impact (nutrient loads, coastal towns, fishery, tourism maritime routes). In the past eutrophic events struck the ecosystem and, more recently, frequent mucus macro-aggregates extended in the whole basin. Study of long term historical time series of the biotic community in the Gulf of Venice in relation with the biogeochemical cycles and physical properties of sea-water have been conducted since the '70s.

Röbäcksdalen research station was established 1954 and contains a field station and a dairy barn. The field station offers the ability to perform field research in a variety of areas such as agricultural science, biology, agroecology, soil science and environmental science. At the infrastructure it is possible to do research in a variety of areas such as animal science, agricultural science, ecology, phenology, climatology, geochemistry, biology, agroecology, soil science and environmental science. Visitors and users of the infrastructure can get access to the land and a stream collecting drainage and surface runoff-water from the area, animals in the dairy facility, workshop, machines, measuring equipment and techniques, personnel, laboratories and working stations. All data that is gathered within the infrastructure can also be available for the user, most of with is continuously collected data, data from feeding trials, climate data, soil data, data from water samples of runoff-water, data from the catchment area around the station as well as GIS data and data from different long-term-trials. The predominant soil type at the experimental fields is sandy-silt, which is characterized by good water holding capacity and high capillarity, hence the crops seldom suffer from drought here. The humus content is high (3-6%) which means that the soil is not so dense, something that otherwise might be a problem for this soil type. Sandy soil is present in limited areas. We are active in four different locations in northern Sweden. At Röbäcksdalen we manage the station and on the other sites we collaborate with Lantmännen Lantbruk at Lännäs (Västernorrland), Torsta AB at Ås (Jämtland) and Hushållningssällskapet Norrbotten och Västerbotten at Öjebyn (Norrbotten). The dairy barn was built in 2006 and has around 105 dairy cows of the breed Swedish red. The barn can e.g. be used for feed trials and among the equipment are two Greenfeed units that measure greenhouse gases (GHG) produced by the animals. The inclusion of the barn also offers farm scale studies of e.g. production of GHG or N or P flows.