Combined carbon-water cycle feedbacks due to climate and land-use change are poorly constrained, but may be expected to significantly alter the provisioning of important ecosystem services. Mountain ecosystems in the European Alps are hot spots of climate and land use changes. While a wealth of data exists on the carbon and water cycling in mountain ecosystems in the Alps, these have not been analyzed in a synthetic fashion and not in a way that allows projecting to likely future climatic and land-use conditions. This lack of knowledge hampers an assessment of the consequences of future climate and land‐use change scenarios on ecosystem services and the development of appropriate adaptation strategies.

The overarching objective of the CYCLAMEN project, financed by the Province of Bolzano through the Legge 14 programme, is to fill this major research gap and to quantify and project the resilience and vulnerability of ecosystem carbon and water cycling in North and South Tyrol, as well as the ecosystem services these are provisioning to likely future changes in climate and land use.

Contact person: Mariapina Castelli

mariapina.castelli@eurac.edu