Abstract
The impact of land use and climate change in mountain areas is stronger than the global average. Since mountains are responsible for much of the world‘s water resources, their vegetation is a key factor in buffering large volumes of water. To determine the effects of climate change on Alpine grassland ecosystems, lysimeter measurements and stable isotope techniques can be used. The international research project ‚ClimAgro‘ aims to analyze in a comparative study how the water balance (precipitation, evaporation, infiltration, soil moisture) in Alpine grasslands is influenced by a number of factors, such as agricultural management, soil types, different climatic conditions (Northern central european climate vs. dry Inneralpine Climate) and extreme climatic events (droughts). Alpine grasslands were investigated in a garden experiment at the long term socio-ecological research (LTSER) site ‘Stubai Valley’, Tyrol, Austria, with high precision lysimeters (smart field lysimeters®, SFL, METER Group AG, Munich). Changes in plant metabolism were reported by various isotopic response patterns of species. From the results, a better understanding of the reactions of grassland species to predicted climatic changes was obtained.