Climatic change will lead to changes in amounts and timing of precipitation. Consequently terrestrial ecosystems will face changes in water availability, prolonged drought periods, and increased flooding leading to interactions with other global change factors and causing significant effects on ecosystem functioning and increased risk of desertification. Research activities into precipitation change have so far been very fragmented and with little coordination, and the overall consequences of precipitation change for terrestrial ecosystems and the society are still largely unknown.

EPRECOT will organize a workshop on “effects of precipitation change on terrestrial ecosystems” in order to bring together international research groups and experiences from precipitation related research.

Aim
The aim of the workshop is to:

• Summarize and synthesize present day “state of the art” and knowledge about effects of precipitation change based on theory and past and present ecosystem scale research projects.
• Identify future key research areas by the use of ecosystem-models to generate hypotheses about the expected consequences of precipitation changes.
• Identify gaps in knowledge and propose new research activities through plenary discussions and a series of working group discussions.

Content
The workshop will:

• review our present knowledge about future climate change driven changes in precipitation amounts and patterns
• synthesize the results from experimental manipulation studies dealing with precipitation change
• conduct a “model experiment” as part of the preparation for the workshop. The model experiment will run three ecosystem models for 6 selected ecosystem studies based on scenarios for precipitation amounts, precipitation patterns, temperature and CO₂ in order to challenge our understanding and generate hypotheses of precipitation change effects and in particular the interaction with other drivers.
• Discuss our present understanding and propose future research activities and projects
• Produce a series of scientific papers on “state of the art” and syntheses of our conceptual understanding.

Participants
EPRECOT is financially supported by the European Commission and the US network TERACC in concert. The workshop will select and invite 60 researchers and 5-10 Ph.D. and master students. Invitees will be chosen based on their experience and research within the area.

Time and place
The EPRECOT workshop will take place 22-25 May 2006 in Elsinore, Denmark

Contact
If you are interested in knowing more about the workshop, please contact:
Claus Beier

Risoe National Laboratory
Biosystems department
Frederiksborggade 399
DK-4000 Roskilde
Denmark
Ph: +45 4677 4161
Email: eprecot@risoe.dk