Project description
Tracking plant water stress under increasing droughts
In view of increasing incidences of droughts, there is a critical need to understand how vegetation water stress affects ecosystem productivity and carbon sequestration. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the OPTI-WAVE project aims to develop a satellite-based approach for the estimation of vegetation canopy water content, which is an important metric used for quantifying the level of water stress in vegetation and the impact of drought on ecosystems. It will integrate optical remote sensing observations and vegetation optical depth, which measures opacity of microwave radiation as it passes through a plant canopy. The findings will shed light on atmospheric plant stress and help in determining drought hot spots around the world.
Objective
Drought is an increasingly important stressor of vegetation, yet there is still no general agreement on how to model drought effects on primary production. One reason is the lack of observational data on the water status of vegetation, i.e. vegetation canopy water content (VCW). There are remote sensing methods for near-surface soil moisture, but this is only indirectly connected to root-zone water content; emerging methods for above-ground biomass; and a well-established, microwave-based measure of vegetation optical depth (VOD), which however combines signals of biomass and water content, limiting its usefulness. This project will develop a method to provide accurate global coverage of VCW from space, by exploiting the complementarity between optical remote sensing (which can be used to retrieve VCW by means of a radiative transfer model, PROSAIL) and VOD, which has the advantage over optical remote sensing products that it does not saturate at dense vegetation. Inferred VCW will be evaluated against ground measurements where they exist. The developed VCW will be applied globally alongside existing products including atmospheric formaldehyde concentrations, whose emission by plants is enhanced under stress, to identify vegetation drought hotspots and quantify drought impacts on gross primary production. These insights will be supported by simulations from an improved ecosystem model, enhanced by the satellite-derived VCW. The project takes an interdisciplinary approach, by combining the expertise of the host in vegetation ecophysiology and primary production modelling with the applicant’s well-developed skills in both optical and microwave remote sensing. It will contribute both to the improved utilization of data from existing satellites, and to the improvement of “next-generation” primary production models that depend strongly on both first-principles theory and extensive, space- and ground-based data on key ecosystem properties.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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SW7 2AZ London
United Kingdom
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