Category: News
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Meet IIASA: ALFAwetlands partner from Austria
About IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an ALFAwetlands partner from Austria. IIASA is a non-governmental, multi-national organization devoted to interdisciplinary, policy-oriented research focusing on selected aspects of environmental, economic, technological, and social issues in the context of global change. IIASA investigators perform interdisciplinary research that combines methods and models from the…
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A European-scale campaign during the summer of 2024 across the 5 living labs
The field campaign Within ALFAwetlands, we measure and evaluate wetland restorations, impacts and possible strategies, trying to answer multiple specific research questions. The variety of wetland living labs across Europe allows partner-wise harmonized methodologies for continuous monitoring. Furthermore, individual experiments may be conducted. In this context, the CNRS team from Toulouse, in collaboration with the…
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LL Estonia – how we accompany the restoration of former peat extraction areas
ALFAwetlands Living Lab in Estonia, run by University of Tartu, consists of four sites, namely: Vända, Laiuse, Ess-soo and Kuresoo. Below you will find more details about the history and current restoration activities at the Laiuse and Ess-soo. The history of peat extraction mining Wetlands, particularly peatlands, demand our special attention. ALFAwetlands addresses the restoration…
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Peatland monitoring in LL Estonia
Natural peatlands are quite sensitive ecosystems, or, more specifically, terrestrial wetland ecosystems. Their naturally water-logged conditions, on the one hand, prevent plant material from fully decomposing, which means peatlands produce more organic matter than they decompose. Undrained peatlands accumulate Carbon and, in the long run, sequester Carbon. Those acted as “CO2 sinks for millennia, exerting…
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The complexity of data collection – the ALFAwetlands approach
ALFAwetlands is a complex, multi-annual EU Horizon project with project partners and their respective Living Labs from across Europe. Further, there are nine different wetland types from restored peat extraction areas (Fig. 1) over wetland forests to coastal wetlands included in our project. Consequently, any kind of data collection should be synchronized, hereby following the…
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ALFAwetlands – applying unified methods at European wetlands
One of the ALFAwetlands project assignments is to study organic soils in wetland environments. Nine different wetland types across Europe, from restored peat extraction areas over wetland and riparian forests to coastal wetlands are being actively investigated. This broad range of environmental conditions require a unified approach to gather detailed information on greenhouse gas fluxes,…
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Importance of Beavers in Wetland Restoration: The UK Example
Beavers, known for their remarkable ability to transform landscapes through dam-building and waterway management, once thrived across the British Isles. Their journey from native inhabitants to locally extinct species and finally to their reintroduction highlights the complexities of human-wildlife interactions and the evolving understanding of ecological restoration. Ancient Inhabitants Beavers were once widespread across the…
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Fire Management of reed belt in Austria
Management of the reed belt is one of the most important topics of the ALFAwetlands Austrian-Hungarian ALFAwetlands Living Lab. Introduction Recent studies (Nemeth et al. 2022) have shown that large parts of the reed belt consist of reed stands that are decades old and that there are clear signs of progressive dieback processes in these…
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Peatland protection in Austrian Burgenland
One of the ALFAwetlands Living Labs: Austrian-Hungarian Living Lab is located partly in Austria in the Burgenland Region. For this region Action Plan, based on the Austrian Peatland Strategy 2030+ has been developed. Please also read: Action Plan Burgenland The Burgenland Action Plan, based on the Austrian Peatland Strategy 2030+, is currently in the planning…