ERC Proof of Concept “MIRRA - Microclimate Real-time Remote Applications”
Description of the PI
Pieter De Frenne graduated as a bioscience engineer in land and forest management at Ghent University in 2007 and obtained a PhD from the same university in 2011, at the Department of Forest & Water Management. In 2011-2012, he was postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge.
Now, he is associate professor at the Forest & Nature Lab, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University. His research field is the dynamics of plants in a changing environment. He utilizes observational and experimental approaches as well as large databases and modelling to address questions in connection to plant dynamics and global change themes (climate change, land-use changes and nitrogen pollution).
Project description
Microclimate data for everybody
Standard weather stations follow the guidelines of the World Meteorological Organisation that sensors should be installed well away from trees, above short grass. Hence, we know less about how the climate is changing in forests and other remote habitats. This is a problem because the majority of biodiversity across the globe occurs in the shade of trees. Policy makers and land managers urgently need open access to more microclimate data. Within the MIRRA project, Pieter De Frenne and his colleagues develop an open access instrument with an associated online database. The overarching aim of MIRRA is to develop a simple self-assembly instrument for instantaneous, long-term and remote measurements of microclimate with optimized power usage and data transfer via cellular connectivity. All data become automatically available to everybody online, and MIRRA will thus substantially increase the availability of open access real-time forest microclimate data. As a proof-of-concept showcase, we will install the MIRRA system in forests spread across Europe.
The project runs from December 2023 until May 2025.
Disclaimer Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency (ERCEA). Neither the European Union nor the authority can be held responsible for them.
