Yesterday, we spent a pretty grey day in the east of Flanders to dig up microclimate loggers. The view: heavy clouds on top of the shades of brown provided by the late-winter heathland, as is so typical for the region.

The world in the east of the country gives of a bit of an otherworldly vibe, especially when the heathland gives way to the famous ‘slag hills’ of the old coal mines, where one might expect a Mars Rover behind every corner.

Temperatures of these otherworldly environments will be very interesting to compare with the rest of the region, and those dug-up loggers will thus be a fantastic contribution to our upcoming Flemish soil microclimate maps. For that, this one fieldwork day was also just a small teaser, as from next week, the citizen science project will get into full swing, with 5100 sensors installed all across Flanders.

More on that very very soon…