The Snowdon ECN Site
CCW and the Welsh Government co-sponsor the UK
Environmental Change Network (ECN) site on Snowdon. The UK
Environmental Change Network (ECN) is the UK's long-term,
integrated environmental monitoring and research programme.
ECN gathers information about the pressures on and responses to
environmental change in physical, chemical and biological
systems.
The ECN on Snowdon is at 500 metres and is visited year round. A
large amount of data is collected each week as well as data
collected continuously from the Automatic Weather Station (AWS)
The information from the AWS is automatically put on a website
and accessed by many people travelling to Snowdon. It is also
linked to other weather stations on Snowdon. To look at our weather
site please see the link at the bottom of the page.
A large range of variables are collected from beetles & bats
to butterflies (one of the butterflies commonly found on Snowdon is
the green veined white shown here). All the butterfly data is
linked to the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. See the link to their
web page below for more information.
In 2006 we started a freshwater ECN site at Nant Teyrn on
Snowdon to run alongside our terrestrial site. A range of things
will be looked at including diatoms and macrophytes this will bring
to three the number of ECN freshwater sites in Wales.
The collection of phenological information is an important part
of the work on the Snowdon site. This involves collecting
information on the timings of a range of species from tadpole
hatching to the first bud of the purple saxifrage. All this
information is sent to the UK Phenology Network where it is
combined with thousands of other data sets to give us
information on changes in our environment due to climate change. To
look at their website please click on the link at the bottom of
this page.
We also have an ammonia site at Plas y Brenin which is part of
the UK national Ammonia Monitoring Network. Follow the link to the
webpage at the bottom of this page to see the results of
ammonia monitoring on this site since 1997.
Monitoring of ozone is also carried out by the ECN team at
Marchlyn Mawr the results of which are linked to the Welsh Air
Quality Forum. Click on the link at the bottom of this page to
learn more.
As well as collecting rain samples on site for ECN we also
collect them as part of the Acid Water Deposition Monitoring
network.
All the data we collect is sent to and archived by the
Environmental Change Network Central Co-ordination Unit based at
CEH Lancaster. A summary of all the data collected by all the sites
can be seen by following the link at the bottom of the page. This
website will also explain all you need to know about ECN