Litla Skarð - Iceland

Litla-Skarð; is not a typical research station but a bio-monitoring site. The site is operated jointly by the Agricultural University of Iceland, the Icelandic Institute of Natural History, the Icelandic Meteorological Office, the Environmental and Food Agency of Iceland, and the Iceland Forest Service. Litla-Skarð is a national site for the International Cooperative Program on Integrated Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Ecosystems (ICP IM). The main research emphasis till now has been on chemistry of precipitation, climate, and hydrology. A vegetation inventory has been carried out at the site, and the main vegetation and soil types have been mapped. The research is mostly confined to a 560000 m² catchment area. Automated weather and hydrological stations were set up at the site in 2000. Existing data bases include climatic records, data on catchment hydrology and water chemistry, as well as limited biological records.