The Cairngorms: The UK's first sub-arctic Environmental Change Network site

During the 1980s, a series of major changes to the Earth's environment, including increases in C02 levels and the hole in the ozone layer, were detected only because of the existence of long-term monitoring. The recognition of a lack of quantitative long-term information on the state of the environment came to the fore, and the need for national and international programmes to monitor environmental change became accepted by both politicians and the general public. To establish such a programme, the UK Government launched, in January 1992, the concept of a network of sites to monitor environmental change - the Environmental Change Network (ECN).

An integral part of the ECN philosophy is the concept of integrated monitoring, i.e. the measurement of related variables in different biotic and abiotic compartments and co-ordinated in space and time to provide a comprehensive picture of the system under study.