The “Station description and historical information” instruction document contains guidelines to acquire and report all the descriptive information required to characterize the station at the beginning of the ICOS period. Such information concerns mainly the station location and organization, the average climate conditions (temperature, precipitation, wind direction, radiation), and the history of disturbances and management. The document is structured in three different sections: - Measurements: in this section it is described how and where collect the needed information - Submission: it is the section related to the data preparation and submission to the ETC. It includes the list of all the parameters, the correct formatting and how to submit them to the database. It is linked to the BADM system, used to submit the metadata (and not continuous measurements) - Processing: in this section the station description information that are calculated and extracted by the ETC are reported. It is important to remind that the exact application of the protocol at site level is also discussed with ETC in order to find agreed solutions for specific cases. If a specific part is relevant only for a specific ecosystem or site Class this is also reported in the document. Please also note that the Site characterization Instructions are also part of the general description of the ecosystem but more focused on the actual vegetation type and related parameters.