The site is located in the southern part of the Rur catchment in the west of Germany close to the Belgian border. The typical landscape of the region consists of grasslands being interrupted by small villages and occasional forest and crop areas. The climate is maritime temperate. Soils are dominated by (stagnic) Cambisols and Stagnosols on Devonian shales with occasional sandstone inclusions that are covered by a periglacial clay-silt layer of 0.5-2 m thickness. The two main target fields of the EC station are in the center of a larger grassland observation area. The vegetation of the site belongs mostly to the Ranunculus repens-Alopecurus pratensis plant community with the major species i.e. Alopecurus pratensis, Lolium perenne, Poa trivialis and Rumex acetosa.
