Abstract ID: 3.12588 | Accepted as Talk | Talk/Oral | TBA | TBA

In order to better understand the impact of societal drivers on biophysical systems – and hence changes in ecological indicators – it is important to understand society and its biophysical environment as an interconnected socio-ecological system that is co-evolving and adapting over time. Understanding the multiple impacts of global change on major European ecosystems, critical zones and socio-ecological systems requires an appropriately configured research infrastructure such as the eLTER RI, where scientists and research communities collaborate with policy-makers and society at large over the long-term. The unifying approach for the elements and structure of the eLTER RI is therefore based on four conceptual pillars: (1) long-term, (2) in-situ, (3) process orientation and (4) whole-system approach. The Wholes Systems Approach to In-Situ Research on Life-supporting Systems (WAILS) “combines research on horizontal interactions between social systems and their environments with research in macrosystem ecology with its vertical interactions and scaling”. Social-ecological systems consider systemic relations between human activities and ecological processes, which allows the identification of trends and feedbacks in their interaction. To represent both systems, it is important to integrate a variety of qualitative and quantitative data. We therefore collected 178 socio-ecological datasets for the Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) Platform Eisenwurzen and provide an overview of the availability and accessibility of these data. We then cross-referenced these datasets with the current list of eLTER sociosphere Standard Observations for the period 1970-2023. We observed an increase in the availability of all quantitative data, as well as their level of resolution, over the observation period. The evaluation showed that datasets exist for all Standard Observations studied, but their coverage varies considerably, especially for long time series. While information on land use systems and resource use was quite abundant, data on consumption, livestock and regional economy were rather scarce. As no qualitative data were publicly available, we included an exemplary sample and developed a data scheme that allows the integration of qualitative datasets into the eLTER information management framework.