Integrated Carbon Observation System – ICOS

ICOS, Integrated Carbon Observation System, is a Landmark ESFRI European research infrastructure with ERIC in Finland, which aims to obtain high-precision measurements of greenhouse gas concentration and exchanges in the three components atmosphere, sea, and terrestrial ecosystems, and to provide data to support decision makers in strategies to combat climate change. In particular, the data collected are critical for quantifying the greenhouse gas balance, the role of the three components, and the impact of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems.

The infrastructure consists of a network of stations distributed in 16 European countries, with a total of more than 170 sites and the involvement of hundreds of scientists and researchers. The Italian network consists of 25 stations, including 15 ecosystem, 5 oceanic and 5 atmospheric.

ICOS Italy, along with ICOS Belgium and France, also hosts the Ecosystem Thematic Centre (ETC), the thematic center that coordinates all the ecosystem stations in the network, preparing measurement protocols and processing all data centrally.

Dedicated ecosystem stations cover the most typical territories of Italy: different types of forests, cultivated fields, and shrub patches. Atmospheric stations are located in northern Italy, such as in the Alps, and on the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. Sites monitoring the ocean are located in the Adriatic and Ligurian Seas.

The Italian network includes the Lampedusa Integrated Observatory, the only station in the entire network that simultaneously collects information related to the three domains of interest.

ICOS Italy is coordinated by the Joint Research Unit (JRU), a collaboration of 17 Italian entities, including universities, research institutes and other entities. The CNR is the lead institution.

IRET is responsible for the management of two monitoring stations characterized by Eddy-covariance torry, which are located one at the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano in Rome and the other at the Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, and are coordinated by the Montelibretti (RM) and Naples offices, respectively.