The Hungarian ILTER Network consists of three sites representing the characteristic biomes in the country: lake Balaton ILTER site, Sikofut oak forest ILTER site, and the Kiskun sand forest-steppe ILTER site. Hungarian ecologists have developed broad multidisciplinary research projects, which can meet both the requirements of international research standards and the domestic needs of nature conservation and environment protection. Hungarian policy and decision makers have also recognised the importance of long-term ecological research. As a consequence different grants such as Hungarian R + D "Szechenyi", EU FWS Projects, OTKA and OTKA-NSF Projects, Joint grant of Ministry of Environment and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences were awarded in the last 2-3 years, what could create the basis of national and international research cooperations of Hungarian ILTER sites

Emissions, especially of SO2 and to a certain degree of NOx have been reduced markedly in Slovakia during the 90s. Problems related to climate change and especially ozone are increasingly growing. The aim was to evaluate the long-term air pollution effect on forest ecosystems in mountain area with prevailing distribution of spruce through evaluation of spruce needle surface structure in relation to mineral nutrient status of trees. According to strong relationship between the coefficient of epicuticular wax degradation (Q) and accumulation of S and other elements it can be suggested that evaluation of needle surface structure by means of Q well reflects the surface status of needles

Forest ecosystems water balance research is very complicated because of forest influence upon individual components of the water balance. Global climate changes represent a real threat for forest ecosystems. In hydric area these changes concern especially thermal balance and resulting increased evapotranspiration, time and spatial distribution of precipitation