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Parameterisation of environmental and physiological controls of volatile organic compound emissions from european forests.

Objective



The overall output of ECOVOC will be a complete instrumentarium to predict terpenoid emissions from major European forest types at the individual source level and to provide it to end users in a uniform format including detailed error assessment and validity check. End users will be among scientists working on scaling from the canopy/landscape level to European scale inventories of BVOC emissions. BVOC inventories were performed in recent years because BVOCs have been recognised to play a relevant role in atmospheric chemistry and ozone formation. The proposed EU emission control strategies (NOx vs. VOC emission control) to reduce tropospheric ozone are dependent on reliable estimates of BVOC emissions from vegetation. It has been assessed that current uncertainty of BVOC emission estimates in the range of a factor 5 must be reduced to 50% to let air chemistry models work properly.
The hypothesis that ECOVOC can provide a substantial contribution to the enormous improvement of BVOC inventories required, is based on the fact that (i) European dominant landcover for BVOC emissions is with forests being composed of relatively few tree species, (2) terpenoids are by far dominating BVOC emissions, (3) recent field campaign projects gave clear indications of incorrect assumptions in presently used terpenoid emission models, but improvements are limited due to ubiquitous co-correlation between driving variables in the field. Therefore, by parameterising current field observations, by focussing on terpenoids, and by taking a few common tree species as test case studies for the principal emitter types, ECOVOC can be highly effective and may be the essential of a new quality of BVOC inventories.
ECOVOC will not consider emissions at canopy or ecosystem level and will not prepare BVOC inventories at any scale, but will develop a complete procedure for doing this type of work. In fact, all current inventories were completely depending on the validity of (1) emission factors for the individual sources, (2) models predicting emissions on base of driving environmental parameters, and of (3) correct relating of emission models with emission sources. The ECOVOC strategy to cover all relevant aspects of the emission variability in European forests is by a carefully designed combination of many different experimental, databasing and modelling activities, performed by a consortium of six different groups with well defined responsibilities, which are integrated by a clear management structure based on advanced communication techniques. The activities are focused on oaks and on conifers, including each a representative of mid-latitude and of Mediterranean origin of the principal emitter types.
The experimental work programme aims at providing process understanding, data sets and parameter sets for integrative modelling, and is consisted of studies
- in controlled conditions to develop new parameter sets and correction termsfor the effects of light, temperature, drought, and enzyme activity;
- with carbon labelling and isotopic discrimination to understand betterterpenoic biosynthesis and emission pathways;
- of variability of emissions due to biocycles, compartments and seasonalconstraints in field experiments at the individual source level;
- on effects of enhanced CO2 and ozone to develop parameter sets for futureemission scenarios;
- of compiling literature data and performing complementary screening to geta complete emission factor database for major European forest trees;
- of screening for OVOCs in all experiments to achieve a sound position onOVOC relevance for air chemistry.

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Coordinator

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
EU contribution
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Address
Via Enrico Fermi TP 290
21020 ISPRA
Italy

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Participants (5)