Niwot Ridge is an alpine ecology research station located 65 km northwest of Denver in north-central Colorado.
It is on the Front Range of the southern Rocky Mountains and lies within the Roosevelt National Forest.
Niwot Ridge is one of the National Science Foundation's Long Term Ecological Research Network (LTER) sites and has been used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for atmospheric trace gas sampling since 1968.
[8][9] Substantial increases in nitrogen deposition during the past three decades are one of the major concerns and have already impacted biological processes in the alpine tundra and surrounding catchment areas.
Educational programs in the biosphere reserve[10] focus primarily on the university level but also include high schools and the general public.