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Content archived on 2024-04-30

Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Farmed Organic Soils

Objective


To assess the present role of farmed organic soils as sources and sinks of the greenhouse gases N2O, CH4 and CO2 by direct measurements at core sites along three transects through Europe.


The farmed organic soils differ from mineral soils in several ways:
(i) They are strong emitters of CO2 due to the net degradation (oxidation) of the parent material. This
carbon loss results in measurable lowering of the surface level of the soils by about 0.5-3.0 cm per
year. The estimated emission contributes remarkably to the total national anthropogenic CO2 emission
in spit of small land areas. However, the estimates are uncertain, and needs to be determined by direct
net flux measurements.
(ii) They also appears to emit exceptionally large quantities of N2O to the atmosphere.
(iii) The emissions are likely to be strongly enhanced by global warming. Thus, farmed organic soils are
obvious targets for policy makers in search for social and
economically cost efficient measures to
mitigate climate gas emissions from agriculture.
Main tasks of the project are:
1. To compile, unravel and quantify the major events and factors determining total annual gas emissions
from organic soils, based on each participating laboratory special skills and equipment, and by linking
experimental and modelling studies at different levels of
integration.
2. To study both short and long term processes (via the chronosequence contained in the transects) to
come up with the best estimations of the ecosystem behaviour under changed management practice and
changed climate, both in the short and in the long run.
3. To compile a data base of the measurements and models to make these available to other research
groups and to decision makers.
4. To disseminate this new knowledge to other scientific groups by post graduate courses on measuring
and modelling techniques.

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Call for proposal

Data not available

Coordinator

SWEDISH ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE LTD-IVL SVENSKA MILJOININSTITUTET AB
EU contribution
No data
Address
43,VALHALLAVAGEN 81
11427 STOCKHOLM
Sweden

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Total cost
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Participants (9)