Phenology: Characteristic vegetation stages are observed and registered. Among other indicators, phenological data in North Rhine-Westphalia are used by the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection for climate impact monitoring.(https://www.lanuv.nrw.de/kfm-indikatoren/)
Phenological Seasons in Germany
With the beginning of the flowering of the hazelnut (Corylus avellana) the phenological season “early spring” begins, the phenological winter begins with the leaf fall of the English oak (Quercus robur). The phenological clocks illustrate the reaction of the vegetation to climate change: the early spring now begins earlier compared to the period 1961 to 1990, the winter became shorter on average and the phenological autumn longer. In 2020, early spring began extremely early, as the right-hand phenological clock shows.
Trend in Germany and in Beijing, China
Kaiwen Zhong, a student at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences, researched phenological data collected in Beijing, China, and compared them with data for Germany. (Source: German Meteorological Service). The day of the beginning of the forsythia flowering (Forsythia intermedia) in Germany (light green symbols) and Beijing (dark green symbols) shows a decreasing trend, i.e. the flowers appeared earlier in the year.
Data for Nordrhein-Westfalen
In North Rhine-Westphalia the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection (LANUV) maintains three phenological gardens in Essen, Recklinghausen and Waldfeucht.
Source: Landesamt für Natur, Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz Nordrhein-Westfalen
The phenological data are reported to several European / international programmes:
- International Phenological Gardens (IPG) at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin
- Global Phenological Monitoring Programme (GPM) at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin