Ecosystems: Targets

The 10-Year Implementation Plan sets out the following two-, six- and ten-year targets for guiding the ecosystem-related work on GEOSS

2-Year Targets

• Facilitate the harmonization of methods for observing the GEOSS set of ecosystem variables.
• Facilitate the full implementation of a global carbon observing system, in accordance with the specifications detailed in the IGOS-P IGCO Theme Report, which incorporates the Terrestrial Carbon Observation plan of GTOS, and carbonrelated components of GOOS and GCOS.
• Facilitate a globally agreed, robust and implementable (operational) classification scheme for ecosystems.
• Advocate the operational continuity of moderate to high-resolution Earth-observing satellites for land cover and ocean colour.
• Facilitate efforts to eliminate regional disparity in observing capacity. For example, two thirds of the World’s oceans are in the Southern Hemisphere, whereas most of the advanced oceanographic centres are in the Northern Hemisphere. Stations for observing ecological variables on land are much more closely spaced in temperate countries than in the tropical belt.
• Facilitate the networking of institutions making observations relating to ecosystems.
• Advocate the development of tools to scale up from a limited number of in situ ecosystem observations made at local scales, to arrive at a large-scale, comprehensive picture of ecosystems.
• Advocate the continued rescue, acquisition, digitisation and making accessible of historical information relating to ecosystems.
• Facilitate the validation of existing tools such as synthetic aperture radar and hyperspectral imagers for the measurement of ecosystem properties.
• Advocate the development of new sensors and platforms, and facilitate their use for routine observations in the field on an operational basis. For example, airborne sensor technologies such as LIDAR are ready to move out of the research domain. Molecular tools are now being developed to study the microbial ecology of marine systems. In situ, self-contained, flow cytometers for classification of phytoplankton and bacteria (the “cytobuoys”) and underwater laser imaging and scanning techniques that can be used for recording marine life underwater and for detecting terrestrial ecosystem structures, are in advanced stages of development. New sensors are also on the horizon for measurement of the chemical properties of the ocean and terrestrial ecosystems.

6-Year Targets

• Facilitate the execution of a global (terrestrial, inland water, coastal, and oceanic) ecosystem mapping initiative at a resolution of 500 m, using a standardized classification and the tools validated above, and integrated with the Global Spatial Data Initiative.
• Facilitate the implementation of a global nitrogen observing system.
• Facilitate the coordination and expansion of a network of land, ocean and coastal reference stations for monitoring ecosystem properties such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron fluxes, including change detection.
• Facilitate the establishment of a global, sufficient and representative in situ and airborne network for validating and enhancing space-based observations of ecosystem properties in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, based on existing national and regional integrated environmental monitoring networks, and coordinated with and linked to the network described above.
  Produce or facilitate the production of baseline maps for the globe, with adequate resolution and known uncertainty, of selected ecosystem properties such as: leaf area phenology, phytoplankton bloom dynamics; primary production, and net carbon exchange; energy and water exchange; productivity at higher trophic levels (e.g. grazing, fisheries production), and ancillary data such as topography, land use, geology and soils.

10-Year Targets

• Facilitate the production of spatially-resolved information on ecosystem change, condition and trend, in relation to their capacity to deliver sustainable ecosystem services in sufficient quantities to meet societal needs; i.e. maps of ecosystem health, risk and vulnerability with sufficient resolution to support national and global decision-making.
• Facilitate monitoring of urban ecosystems.