21st Annual Report 2012: Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution. International Cooperative Programme on Integrated Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Ecosystems

The Integrated Monitoring Programme (ICP IM) is part of the effect-oriented activities under the 1979 Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, which covers the region of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The main aim of ICP IM is to provide a framework to observe and understand the complex changes occurring in natural/semi natural ecosystems. This report summarizes the work carried out by the ICP IM Programme Centre and several collaborating institutes. The emphasis of the report is in the work done during the programme year 2011/2012 including: • A short summary of previous data assessments • A status report of the ICP IM activities, content of the IM database, and geographical coverage of the monitoring network • An interim report on sulphur and nitrogen input-output budgets at ICP IM sites • A summary of results from biological sub-programmes of ICP IM and data analysis of relationship between changes in abundance of understory species and Nitrogen Critical Load exceedance • A progress report on field monitoring and dynamic soil-vegetation modelling using VSD+ model • National Reports on ICP IM activities are presented as annexe