The Lower Hop Brook is a core aquatic site in Domain 01 Northeast in Massachusetts. HOPB site is a 3rd-4th order wadeable stream that flows into the Quabbin Reservoir in central Massachusetts. The section of stream selected by NEON flows from Shutesbury Road to the inlet of reservoir. Several beaver dams and ponds characterize the area upstream of Shutesbury Road. The Lower Hop Brook site is a clear-water, moderate gradient stream with gradient increasing as the stream approaches the reservoir. Minimal beaver activity (dams, ponds) is anticipated in the upper portions of the reach during the life of the NEON project. Large debris dams characterize the reach downstream. Substrate ranges from sand to cobbles, boulders, and finally bedrock outcrops downstream. The stream canopy is predominantly a mixed deciduous, northern hardwood forest with beech trees near the stream. Total data products collected at this site 78.

Lodz is the third-largest city in Poland. Located in the central part of the country, approximately 135 km south-west of Warsaw. It has a population of 753,192 people. It is the capital of Lodz Voivodeship. Although Lodz was given city rights in 1423, it developed rapidly only in XIX century. It became a centre of textile industry for central and Eastern Europe. During the economic transition of the 1990s Lodz lost its industry. Since that time it has been developing towards the centre of culture, education, and technology. Lodz has a network of numerous but small water courses, and is located in the hills that constitute the first order watershed between the largest Polish rivers, the Wisła and the Odra. The rivers flow in a star-shaped structure to the north to supply the Bzura, then the Wisła, and to the south to supply the Ner and the Odra. This situation affords benefits in eliminating the risk of flooding posed by one major river, on the other hand, exposing the source areas to adverse environmental conditions resulting from urbanization, is unfavourable, and increases risk of flood and drought. The research in the city is organized around issues like: urban sprawl and its effects on environment, society and health; development of blue-green infrastructure; social inclusion and marginalization; eco-gentrification; ecosystem services and their valuation; development of ecohydrological NBS to support regulatory services in the city. LTSER is strongly focused on implementations in the area of integrative city revitalization, water management, and restoration of rivers. The platform consists of two big demonstration - implementation areas with monitoring system for discharges and water quality, however based on learning-alliance group of stakeholders it is linked to many data sources on environmental monitoring, biodiversity, economy, societal information. The future research-implementation-collaboration challenge is NBS linked revitalization of old town, increase adaptive potential of urban areas to climate change, and protection of green ring and blue-green network of the city.

This is a Sphagnum dominated bog, which is part of a mire complex.

Shennongjia Station is located in Xingshan County, Hubei Province, China. It is located in the southern slope of Mount Shennongjia. The altitude is 1290m above sea level. The typical forest types are the northern subtropical mixed evergreen and deciduous broadleaved forest. Shennongjia Station was established in 1994, it became a station of National Field Research Station network running by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China in 2005, and became a member of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN), CAS in 2008.

Changwu station was found in 1984 as one of field experiment stations of Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ISWC, CAS). It joined the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) organized by CAS in 1991 and the National Ecosystem Research Network of China (CNERN) in 2005 by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China. The station located in Wangdong Village, Hongjia town, Changwu County, Shaanxi Province, 200 km away from Xi’an city. Its location is E107°41′ and N35°12′, south of the Loess Plateau. It belongs to the warm temperate semi-humid continental monsoon climate. Mean annual precipitation is 580mm and temperature 9.1℃, frost-free day 171. The elevation is about 1200 m and the depth of ground water is 50-80m. Main crops are winter wheat, spring maize, potato, sorghum, millet, beans and so on. The zonal soil is called Heilu soil with a parent material of clay loam Malan loess paleosol soil with an average depth in excess of 100m that were deposited during the Quaternary period. It belongs to the high table land - gully region, and a typical rain-fed agricultural area on the Loess Plateau. Wangdong small watershed, which the station located in, is 6.3km2. Three landform types are high table land, slop land called “Liang” and valley, which occupy the total area of watershed with 35%, 35.6% and 29.4%, respectively. The soil is deep and has good physical properties, like reservoir, support the agro-ecological system.

Mukhrino Field Station is owned and run by the UNESCO Chair on Environmental Dynamics and Climate Change at the Yugra State University, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The Mukhrino Field Station is located at the east bank of the Irtysh River near the confluence with the Ob River in the central taiga area of Western Siberia (60°54’ N, 68°42’ E), 30 km south-west of the town of Khanty-Mansiysk (60 000 inhabitants). Due to the severe continental climate, the environmental conditions in the region are comparable with the sub-arctic zone of Northern Europe. The research site is representative for the Western Siberian pristine carbon accumulating peatland ecosystem (“plain mires”). The mires cover c. 60 % of the land surface and can be regarded as important sources/sinks of greenhouse gases and aerosols. The main mire type of the site is raised bogs of the type Pine-dwarf shrubs-bogs (Ryam) characterized by pine trees, Ledum palustre and dwarf shrubs, with areas of Sphagnum fuscum. Interspersed are mires of the type Poor fens (partly drained in the summer) dominated by Carex lasiocarpa and other graminoids, and Sphagnum balticum. Also ridge-hollow complexes, consisting of bog ridges and poor fen hollows are present.

Tronchaney, Conca di Torgnon, (Torgnon, Aosta), + 388330 + 5075950; Aosta Valley

This is a peatland located in Sologne, 80 km south of Orléans. La Guette peatland is one of the four sites of the SNO Tourbières (CNRS). All the sites of the SNO Tourbières are part of OZCAR (French Observatory on the critical zone). The site was hydrologicaly disturbed. Restoration works took place in 2014. A labeling procedure has began to become associated site of ICOS.

The Pürgschachen Moor is located on the bottom of the Styrian Enns valley, about 1.5 km southwest of the village Ardning in the district of Liezen at an altitude of 632 m a.s.l. It is a pine peat bog with a present extent of about 62 ha. Thus, it is the biggest (to a large part) intact valley peat bog of Austria with a closed peat moss cover and a good example of the formerly widely distributed peatlands of inner-alpine valleys. The peat bog site is property of the Benedictine monastery Admont and is leased to the Moorschutzverein Pürgschachen for an indefinite period of time. An EU Life-project were conducted in the years 1995 to 1998. Since 1991, the peat bog is part of the international and intergovernmental treaty of the Ramsar Convention, constituting a convention on wetlands for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. As a part of the network of nature protection areas Natura 2000 the site is protected as European nature reserve and mentioned as Important Bird Area. Genesis of such valley floor bogs is owed to the incurrence of postglacial lakes on impermeable loamy clay. The open water surfaces silt up due to the sedimentation of dead plant material. Therefore, peat bogs with a peat depth up to 6 meters could evolve from these terrestrialisation mires in the course of time. Mean average temperature of Admont is 6.6°C, annual precipitation is 1400 mm (1971-2000). The typical vegetation of the peat bog is constituted of the three associations of plants Pino mugo-Sphagnetum magellanici (pine peat bog association), Sphagnetum magellanici (coloured bog moss association), and Caricetum limosae (bog sedge association), depending on the prevailing hydrological (local) site conditions. The peat material of the peat bog can be separated into three different peat layers: Muddy-peaty deposits, Carex-rich Sphagnum-Eriophorum-peat, and Ericaceous-poor Sphagnum-Eriophorum-peat. The focus of our research at the study area Pürgschachen Moor is the investigation of carbon fluxes and a full carbon balance measured by eddy covariance technique. Based on the sampling of undisturbed peat cores potential gas releases measured in the laboratory can be compared with the data measured in field. The examination of peat properties, water table measurements, vegetation surveys, and climate data are further important variables. The Pürgschachen Moor is the first peat bog in the Alpine region getting investigated in detail regarding its carbon budget and is supposed to provide extensive information for the assessment and differentiation of alpine peat bogs.

The LTSER Zone Atelier Environnementale Urbaine belongs to LTER-France network and is located in eastern France.The Zone Atelier Environnementale Urbaine ZAEU was created in 2010. It focuses on urban area and urban socioecosystem research questions. The main objective is to define how to facilite an harmonious development according to the city needs without badly impacting the natural system around. The Eurometropole of Strasbourg is a close partner of the ZAEU: local authorities participate to the research experimentations and observation campains. Six working groups are dealing with natural systems in order to better understand the urban ecosystem (biodiversity, hydrology, air and climate, urban metabolism) and the socio system (social and economic dimensions of the society and the individuals, groups behavior and values, politics strategies). In the working groups, we study issues like hydrological system processes in the urban area, population health, energy consomption and production at the city scale, pollutions and contaminations of the various spheres, refusal management with regards to the context of global changes, sustainable development and transitions (economy, ecology, energy).