ICP Forests long experience in quality control and improvement, for monitoring forest in a comparable way

To detect changes in forest ecosystems at the European scale samplings and measurements in the field and in the laboratories have to be done in some homogeneous way over decades and across countries. In many of the surveys of the ICP Forests program samples are taken and analysed in laboratories: -measurement of atmospheric deposition -measurement of soil solution -measurement of changes in soil and humus layers -measurement of tree nutrition Therefore the evaluation and improvement of the quality in laboratories area key issue. This presentation will show the structure and development of the quality control program for laboratories as an example for the quality assurance within the ICP Forests program.