The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is establishing the first UK soil moisture network, COsmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System UK (COSMOS-UK). The network delivers exciting new data showing how soil moisture varies across the country with soil type, climate and vegetation using a sensor based on the interaction of cosmic-rays with soil moisture. COSMOS-UK stations measure other environmental variables including temperature, pressure, and wind speed. The large-scale, integrated measure of soil moisture provided by the COSMOS network is unique to all current methods of measuring soil moisture (i.e., point measures), which will enable a step change in fundamental science, particularly, meteorological predictability associated with soil moisture, better models of greenhouse gas emissions from soils and improve our understanding of ecosystem services. CEH wishes to undertake a market assessment to determine market interest in the provision of soil moisture information products across a range of sectors. The market assessment will answer the following questions: 1) Which industrial sectors have an interest in soil moisture data, what is their need (e.g. spatial and temporal resolution, and service requirement) and for what applications? 2) What is the Value Proposition for such data? CEH will provide an external consultant proficient in undertaking market assessments with background information on COSMOS and the work undertaken to date. The consultant will undertake secondary research on potential opportunities in the remote sensing sector using the information provided by CEH. The market assessment will involve consultation with market experts to understand the market drivers, applications, value proposition and key potential customers / users. The consultant will also facilitate an Industry Consultation Workshop, organised by CEH, which will explore these questions in greater depth. The key outputs of the project are: 1) Market assessment report (Month 3) 2) Industry Consultation Workshop and report (Month 4) 3) Recommendations for further action and next steps (Month 4) The market assessment will provide us with a broad indication of the possible markets available that might benefit from the development of the COSMOS technology, and provide a landscape of evidence. The information will be used to define a potential follow-on project by identifying two or three opportunities that will need a more detailed look and engagement with industry. Evidence gathered through this more detailed approach will be used to define the objectives for the follow-on funding, and allow engagement with end-users throughout the life of the follow-on funding.

The proposed project “Readiness of ICOS for Necessities of integrated Global Observations” (RINGO) aims to further development of ICOS RI and ICOS ERIC and foster its sustainability. The challenges are to further develop the readiness of ICOS RI along five principal objectives: 1. Scientific readiness. To support the further consolidation of the observational networks and enhance their quality. This objective is mainly science-guided and will increase the readiness of ICOS RI to be the European pillar in a global observation system on greenhouse gases. 2. Geographical readiness. To enhance ICOS membership and sustainability by supporting interested countries to build a national consortium, to promote ICOS towards the national stakeholders, to receive consultancy e.g. on possibilities to use EU structural fund to build the infrastructure for ICOS observations and also to receive training to improve the readiness of the scientists to work inside ICOS. 3. Technological readiness. To further develop and standardize technologies for greenhouse gas observations necessary to foster new knowledge demands and to account for and contribute to technological advances. 4. Data readiness. To improve data streams towards different user groups, adapting to the developing and dynamic (web) standards. 5. Political and administrative readiness. To deepen the global cooperation of observational infrastructures and with that the common societal impact. Impact is expected on the further development and sustainability of ICOS via scientific, technical and managerial progress and by deepening the integration into global observation and data integration systems.

Páramos are high mountain grassland-peatland biomes (3000m-4000m) that cover a total area of circa 35700km2. They are crucial for the livelihoods and wellbeing of millions of people living in Colombia and neighbouring Northern Andean countries (Venezuela, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru). Páramos are the main source of water in these regions, are used for crop cultivation and grazing and contain a unique source of untapped genetic diversity. While the Páramos have the potential to support, through the exploitation of its biodiversity, local and regional development, the combined pressure of land use and climate change has already degraded many Páramo areas and their potential demise is a cause for concern for many, including local communities, regional and national policy and decision makers and researchers in Colombia. All agree that any future exploitation requires a sustainable approach and that the management of these systems should enhance the Páramo's resilience to climate change. However, there is still very much which is not known about the functioning of the Páramos and without this knowledge there is a risk that interventions which are designed to achieve sustainability and enhance resilience are not effective or worse detrimental. Páramos are described as sponges that capture and store water from the atmosphere. Few quantitative studies have investigated the mechanisms behind this process and even less is known about the relative role of the plants and the soil of this complex system. Also, Páramos are socio-ecological systems that have been shaped by the human populations that have inhabited them over several centuries. This interaction is continuing to date with local communities relying solely on the Páramo for their livelihoods. This interdisciplinary 3 year project aims to, jointly with Colombian collaborators, establish how the diversity of habitats and of plants within the Páramos contributes to water regulation, via direct storage in live and dead vegetation and via the supply of organic matter in the soil. We will carry out a large field and drone campaign in the Colombian Páramo Guantiva-la Rusia to collect and analyse data on plants, soil and hydrology. We will carry out satellite image analysis to map landscape scale land cover and peatland condition and improve models so that they better represent the hydrology of the ecosystem. The project will also identify how local Páramo inhabitants, particularly crop and livestock farmers, interact currently with the Páramo ecosystem through their day-to-day farming practices. We will invite local people to participate in workshops and storytelling to jointly discover how they understand they are affecting and are affected by the Páramos' water regulation. We will, as we learn more about the functioning of the Páramo, feedback our findings to the local people and so help them initiate more sustainable solutions.

The Arctic is a major source of atmospheric methane and other greenhouse gases, with both natural and anthropogenic emissions. Arctic greenhouse gas sources have the potential to be important globally, changing radiative forcing and atmospheric oxidizing capacity. Moreover, both palaeorecords and present-day studies suggest some sources, such as wetlands and methane hydrates, may show strong positive feedbacks [Nisbet and Chappellaz, 2009], so that the warming feeds the warming. It is urgent that Arctic greenhouse gas sources should be quantified, by strength, geographic location, character (e.g. wetland, gasfield, clathrate), and by temporal variation (summer, winter, day, night), and their vulnerability to change assessed. We will address these issues by an integrated program of measurement and modelling. Analysis of gas mixing ratios (concentrations), isotopic character, and source fluxes, will be made both from the ground and aircraft. Both past and new measurements will be modelled using a suite of techniques. Fluxes will be implemented into the JULES land surface model. Atmospheric modelling, including trajectory and inverse modelling will improve understanding on the local/regional scale, placing the role of Arctic emissions in large scale global atmospheric change.

While most people might think that it is the total concentrations of heavy metals in natural waters that are of most concern when it comes to assessing their toxic effects on animals and plants, scientists now know that it is the concentrations of individual chemical 'species' that are critical. When a metal dissolves in a river or lake, it can be present in many different chemical forms that we call 'species'. For example, a metal may occur in a simple, positively charged form, known as the free metal ion. In the case of copper the free metal ion is represented by the chemical notation Cu2+. Alternatively a metal might be associated, or chemically bound, with an organic compound. The brown colour of many moorland streams is due to natural organic compounds, called humic substances. These substances exhibit a very strong tendency to associate with metals like copper, and hence rivers and lakes with high concentrations of humic substances have low Cu2+ concentrations, even when the total copper concentration is high. The free metal ion (e.g. Cu2+) is by far the most toxic species for any metal and therefore we need to know its concentration if we want to predict metal toxicity accurately. For this reason organisations responsible for setting and enforcing pollution limits, e.g. Environment Agencies, are moving away from using total metal concentrations, towards systems based on a prediction of chemical speciation. However a problem exists in that, although much progress has been made over the last ten years in measuring and predicting metal speciation, there are still considerable discrepancies between the measurements and predictions. There are therefore uncertainties and errors in the current approach to predicting, and possibly measuring, speciation. Chemical speciation is not only important in regard to toxicity, but also to many other aspects of environmental behaviour, such as the fate of metals. For example the distance that a radioactive metal migrates from a waste disposal site and the extent to which a metal, such as lead (Pb), is taken up by plants both depend on chemical speciation. Our study will address the issues described above by: 1. systematically quantifying the individual identifiable uncertainties, and their significance, in making model-based predictions of metal speciation in rivers and lakes 2. producing a series of recommended methods for optimising the current approach to model predictions, thereby reducing the associated errors 3. determining what, if any, unforeseen limitations exist with the current modelling and measurement approaches