Strengthening long-term socio-ecological research in mountain LTSER platforms

Mountain ecosystems are strongly affected by climate change and are highly vulnerable to other anthropogenic impacts, as demonstrated by monitoring programs and related research projects at various Long-Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) sites around the globe. It is becoming increasingly apparent, that changes in ecosystem structures and -functions have impacts on human well-being. These impacts are predicted to increase dramatically, highlighting the need to strengthen the resilience of and develop adaptation strategies for alpine human communities. Consequently, socio-ecological research at local and regional scale that is based on long-term monitoring data is a key factor. The Integrated European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure (eLTER-RI) which is currently developed identifies research on human-environment interactions with an inter- and transdisciplinary approach as one of the main tasks of the associated LTSER platforms. Anticipating the establishment of additional LTSER platforms in the future, we aim to develop pathways towards sustainable socio-ecological research portfolios, including interdisciplinary networking, stakeholder interaction and knowledge transfer. We are welcoming speakers to present best practice examples, experiences as well as failed attempts and ongoing projects. Together, we want to identify enablers and barriers to interactive processes between researchers of different disciplines, representatives of local communities and policy makers and find ways to overcome them. Finally, we want to identify future needs for socio-ecological research in changing alpine ecosystems.