The Barbeau forest research station is awarded a European prize
On 6 April 2025, the Barbeau forest research platform was awarded the Best ICOS Ecosystem Station Award by the European Research Infrastructure ICOS during its Monitoring System Assembly, which took place in Madrid, Spain.
The Barbeau forest research station is a research platform linked to the Ecology, Society & Evolution Laboratory (ESE – Univ. Paris-Saclay/AgroParisTech/CNRS). It has been just been awarded the Best ICOS Ecosystem Station Award 2025.
Installed in 2005 and located near Fontainebleau, in Seine-et-Marne, the station is part of the European Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) infrastructure network. It continuously monitors the functioning and health of the forest ecosystem dominated by Sessile Oak and Hornbeam. Using high-tech equipment deployed from the forest floor to the canopy, the station records a wide range of environmental data day and night, which include weather conditions, optical radiation, and greenhouse gas exchanges such as CO₂ between the forest and the atmosphere. In addition to these automatic measurements, there are regular field campaigns, with observations, photographs, and leaf or soil samples, which are then analysed in the laboratory. The data collected helps to improve our understanding of how forests work, confirm satellite observations for the purpose of space missions, and improve predictive models on the effects of climate change on continental and global scales.
There are more than 100 “Ecosystem” stations across Europe as part of the ICOS network, located in forests, meadows, croplands, wetlands, peat bogs, etc. The ‘Best ICOS Ecosystem Station Award’ has been awarded annually since 2024 to stations for the quality of the metadata produced.