The 70-year-old beech forest (Hordelymo-Fagetum) is located near the Lower Austrian town of Klausen-Leopoldsdorf, 510 metres above sea level, in the Vienna Woods in Lower Austria. The soil type is a rocky brown earth on flysch/sandstone.
The site Klausen-Leopoldsdorf is one of the intensive monitoring areas (Level II areas) of the Europe-wide programme on forest monitoring (ICP Forests). Since 1995, it has been providing high-quality data on the vitality and adaptability of trees, nutrient cycles, critical loads and water balance. Based on these data, scientists can draw conclusions about climate change, air pollution, biodiversity and forest condition. In addition, these investigations by the Level II network offer a high quality data source for the assessment of the environmental situation and forest development on a European level. An additional benefit of Level II is that it provides fundamental insights that go beyond the actual monitoring objective, such as insights about forest treatment, timber supply and renewable energy.
Dendrometer for measuring circumference variation and increment of trees.
(© Austrian Research Centre for Forests)
Available infrastructure:
Site operator: Austrian Research Centre for Forests
Contact: Michael Englisch, Karl Gartner, Barbara Kitzler and Ferdinand Kristöffel
