Final Report Summary - OMRISK (Impacts and risks from anthropogenic disturbances on soils, carbon dynamics and vegetation in podzolic ecosystems)
The OMRISK project starts from the consideration that boreal forests and podzolic soils supporting forest vegetation are of utmost importance in the global carbon cycle. The role of Russian forest vegetation as a potential sink for carbon is well known, but soils have even a higher capacity to store carbon and the illuviation of organic matter in podzolic soils could enhance this phenomenon.
Soil organic matter (SOM) that accumulates in the spodic horizons may be protected from mineralisation due to the lower microbial activity and strong interactions with the inorganic phases. However anthropogenic disturbances may deeply interfere in the podzolic ecosystem functionality and this sink of C may turn into a source.
The objectives of OMRISK were to evaluate the risks of C release caused by human actions, through the assessment of the changes in ecosystem functionality. Some anthropogenic disturbances, such as contamination can be avoided only a global scale, while others can be prevented more easily if scientific results are transferred into best-practises to protect the role of the podzolic ecosystem. To reach the general objective the project was split into work packages (WPs) related to different kind of disturbances which have been studied in different study areas of the Russian Federation.
The specific objectives were:
- Evaluation of the effects of revegetation of spoiled areas on carbon cycle, taking into account both species and community succession and triggering of pedogenic processes;
- Evaluation of the effects of anthropogenic contamination on the dynamics of podzolic environments and on their capacity to act as a sink of carbon;
- Evaluation of the effect of forest management practises on carbon dynamics in podzolic environments, with special emphasis to the risk of carbon release and loss of productive forest soils associated to harvest operations.
Upon the achievement of these specific objectives the data obtained have been used for the final objective of the project:
- Development of new models, or the implementation of existing ones, to extrapolate the results of organic matter and vegetation dynamics to several environments of the same type of ecosystem and analyse the consequences of the different man interferences.
Soil organic matter (SOM) that accumulates in the spodic horizons may be protected from mineralisation due to the lower microbial activity and strong interactions with the inorganic phases. However anthropogenic disturbances may deeply interfere in the podzolic ecosystem functionality and this sink of C may turn into a source.
The objectives of OMRISK were to evaluate the risks of C release caused by human actions, through the assessment of the changes in ecosystem functionality. Some anthropogenic disturbances, such as contamination can be avoided only a global scale, while others can be prevented more easily if scientific results are transferred into best-practises to protect the role of the podzolic ecosystem. To reach the general objective the project was split into work packages (WPs) related to different kind of disturbances which have been studied in different study areas of the Russian Federation.
The specific objectives were:
- Evaluation of the effects of revegetation of spoiled areas on carbon cycle, taking into account both species and community succession and triggering of pedogenic processes;
- Evaluation of the effects of anthropogenic contamination on the dynamics of podzolic environments and on their capacity to act as a sink of carbon;
- Evaluation of the effect of forest management practises on carbon dynamics in podzolic environments, with special emphasis to the risk of carbon release and loss of productive forest soils associated to harvest operations.
Upon the achievement of these specific objectives the data obtained have been used for the final objective of the project:
- Development of new models, or the implementation of existing ones, to extrapolate the results of organic matter and vegetation dynamics to several environments of the same type of ecosystem and analyse the consequences of the different man interferences.
