Israel-LTER  is a national association under the auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities that brings together research​, management, and governmental institutions in Israel that deal with environmental issues. The goal of Israel-LTER is to enable Israel to achieve world leadership in the preservation, restoration and management of open spaces.

To advance these goals, the Israel-LTER project operates in the following areas:

  1. The maintenance and long term monitoring of a broad, coordinated array of sites for research and environmental monitoring in three ecosystems in Israel — desert, semi-arid, and Mediterranean;
  2. Research and long-term monitoring of environmental phenomena in an array of sites along Israel’s rainfall gradient, concentrating on the effects of ecology, hydrology, and geobiochemistry on biodiversity;
  3. Creation of approaches and frameworks for collaboration and interaction between scientists from various disciplines and management bodies — theMinistry of Environmental Protection,  Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael — Jewish National Fund, and the Israel Nature & National Parks Protection Authority  — in order to advance understanding of the complex subjects of biodiversity, its preservation, and its management; 
  4. Collaboration and coordination between scientists of different disciplines and management bodies to create advanced ecological insights for improving the management of open spaces in Israel and advancing the national program for preserving local biodiversity, directed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection;
  5. Development of a Center for Synthesis that will combine data gathered, in order to achieve new insights into the study and management of open spaces and to advance a culture of synthesis and collaboration in the study and management of complex ecological systems;
  6. Translation of basic and applied research results into environmental policies that will aid making decisions in the fields of environmental preservation, restoration, and management of the environment;
  7. Development of a computerized Knowledge Center for the gathering, preservation, and dissemination of interdisciplinary ecological data. This information will serve the present and future needs of research and management and will focus on the interactions between biodiversity and the structure and function of environmental processes. 
  8. Development of a Long-Term Biodiversity Monitoring Center for long-term preservation of biodiversity in Israel.

lter_site_location.JPG 
LTER-Israel national network of ecological stations.  Its mission is to provide natural resource managers with the scientific information necessary to promote long-term biodiversity and sustainible development.

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