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# Ecosystem research: towards an integrated research infrastructures paradigm

Abad Chabbi

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Abad Chabbi. Ecosystem research: towards an integrated research infrastructures paradigm.

TERENO International Conference, Sep 2014, Bonn, Germany. 2014. hal-01829225

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TERRENO

TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENTAL OBSERVATORIES

International Conference 2014

FROM OBSERVATION TO PREDICTION IN TERRESTRIAL SYSTEMS

29 September to 2 October 2014

**Book of Abstracts**

(Status as of 27 September 2014)
**Content**

**Key Note Talks:** K01 to K27

**Orals:** O01 to O84

**Posters:** P1-01 to P3-51

**Author Index**
# Sensing Global Surface Soil Moisture Using NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Mission and its Applications to Terrestrial Water, Energy and Carbon Cycles

D. Entekhabi¹

¹Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States

Water stored in the soil column is the primary link mechanism between the terrestrial water, energy and carbon cycles. Without fluctuations in this storage, i.e., soil moisture, the variabilities in the three principal cycles of the Earth system would be decoupled over land regions. In order to properly understand the variabilities in the global and regional water, energy and carbon cycles and in order to reduce the uncertainty of their future projections under changing atmospheric composition and land use, it is necessary to find the relationship between the soil moisture and fluxes at the surface. The relationship can be summarized in the function reducing energy-limited evaporation rate due to soil moisture. This function is the key closure relationship in the terrestrial branch of the water, energy and carbon cycles. Important as this function is, it is virtually unobserved and empirically treated in Earth system models. This key need in Earth system science understanding is one of the major goals and justification for the NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission. The mission consists of L-band radiometer and L-band radar systems which share a single 6-m rotating mesh antenna, producing a fixed incidence angle conical scan at 40° across a 1000-km swath and a 2-3 day global revisit. By combining data from these two instruments, SMAP will produce an accurate soil moisture product at 9-km resolution across global land surfaces. The SMAP launched is weeks away from the time of this Conference. In this presentation the measurement approach and retrieval algorithms of the SMAP mission will be covered in summary. The relevance of the measurements to the key science question above and to other applications will also be presented.
Scaling carbon dioxide exchange from sites to regions

M. Williams¹, J.-F. Exbrayat¹, A. A. Bloom¹

¹University of Edinburgh, School of GeoSciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Eddy flux towers provide rich information on carbon exchanges, but at a few locations. Thus there are large uncertainties associated with terrestrial carbon flux estimates on regional-global scales. Satellite observations combined with process modelling provide one means of developing regional estimates. A major challenge is to determine whether such upscaling approaches are biased, and their level of uncertainty. In this regard, we implement a Monte Carlo based model-data-fusion approach: we assimilate MODIS LAI, plant-trait data, a tropical biomass map (Saatchi et al.), and the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) into the Data Assimilation Linked Ecosystem Carbon (DALEC) Model, and we implement our approach on an 8-day timestep, 1º resolution, for the period 2001-2010. In addition to observational constraints, we implemented a novel Bayesian parameter inter-dependence network in order to impose ecological and dynamic constraints on DALEC parameter values. Our approach avoids any need for spin-up, assignment of plant functional types, and steady state assumptions. In order to validate our approach, we first implemented our model-data-fusion setup at flux-tower scale, and demonstrated that DALEC NEE fluxes were unbiased against independent in-situ NEE measurements across several biomes and plant-functional types (NEE daily bias = +/- 0.83 gC m⁻² day⁻¹). Then globally, we determined the spatial and temporal dynamics of major terrestrial C fluxes and model parameter values (global GPP = 123 +/- 8 Pg C yr⁻¹; NEE = -1.8 +/- 2.7 Pg C yr⁻¹), and the spatial variability in key parameters such as C residence time. We anticipate that global model-data-fusion approaches will be an important step towards bridging the gap between globally spanning remotely-sensed biometric data and the full ecosystem C cycle. Particularly, these methods are able to incorporate fire, disturbance and land use/change information from earth observations into C cycle estimates.
# Observing and monitoring biodiversity - new horizons and persistent challenges

Christoph L. Häuser¹

¹Museum fuer Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity, Germany

Sound and sustainable management of our Earth's natural resources require reliable, comprehensive scientific information, especially on the biosphere. For biodiversity, the inherently large information complexity and the high degree of fragmentation of observation and monitoring programs and data sets remain significant challenges, especially for achieving higher levels of data integration and targeted information delivery. Whereas biodiversity has traditionally been and continues for large parts to be recorded by various on ground ("in situ") approaches and techniques, increasingly high resolution satellite imagery, large scale data sets from meta-genomics, and technological innovations in other sectors put biodiversity information in the realm of "big data" also providing new and important opportunities for analysis and forecasting.

With comprehensive and accurate information about the state of biodiversity and ecosystems increasingly in demand by research, decision makers and other stakeholders, free data access and available as well as interoperability of data sets is still a limiting factor for many on ground monitoring areas, which continue to be dominated by national or local, very often peculiar programs and initiatives. Examples of state of the art biodiversity observation and monitoring efforts are provided from a number of European and local biodiversity information projects and initiatives (e.g., EU BON, LTER, DATA One) aiming to overcome these barriers.

The important role of recently established and newly emerging international information infrastructures (e.g., GBIF, GenBank, GEOSS) towards facilitating free data access and availability and data integration will be highlighted, also in the light of further support and sustainability of these infrastructures for research and broader services to politics and society at large.

To achieve higher levels of integration of biodiversity data, possible measures to be proposed are:
1. Ensuring free access and open data sharing principles at all levels;
2. Wider implementation of international data standards by research funders, donors, and (public) institutions to enable greater interoperability between individual projects and platforms;
3. Enabling national/regional networks of long-term, site-based standardized recording/monitoring activities & programs;
4. Sustaining international/global information infrastructures. The implications and challenges of such measures will be presented and discussed.
# New insights into hydrochemical processes in lowland river systems gained from *in situ*, sub daily monitoring

A. J. Wade<fnref n="1" />, S. J. Halliday<fnref n="1" />, M. J. Bowes<fnref n="2" />, M. Loewenthal<fnref n="3" />, R. A. Skeffington<fnref n="1" />, H. P. Jarvie<fnref n="2" />

This talk will focus on the insights obtained from *in situ*, high-resolution hydrochemical monitoring in three lowland UK catchments experiencing different levels of nutrient enrichment. Between November 2009 and February 2012, the upper River Kennet, the River Enborne and The Cut, all located within the Thames basin, southeast England, were instrumented with *in situ* analytical equipment to make hourly measurements of a range of hydrochemical determinands. The upper River Kennet is a rural catchment with limited effluent inputs above the selected monitoring point. The River Enborne is a rural catchment, impacted by agricultural runoff, and septic tank and sewage treatment works (STWs) discharges. The Cut is a small river significantly impacted by urban discharges and water abstraction practices. On the upper River Kennet and the River Enborne hourly measurements of Total Reactive Phosphorus (TRP) were made using a Systea Micromac C. In addition on the River Enborne, a Hach Lange Nitratax was used to measure nitrate (NO₃). On The Cut both Total P and TRP were measured using a Hach Lange Phosphax Sigma. At all stations nutrient monitoring was supplemented with hourly pH, chlorophyll, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, turbidity and water temperature using YSI 6600 Multi-parameter sondes. Instream hydrochemical dynamics were investigated using non-stationary time-series analysis techniques.

The results reveal complex nutrient dynamics, with diurnal patterns which exhibit seasonal changes in phase and amplitude, and are influenced by flow conditions, shading and nutrient sources. The effect of sample collection time on Water Framework Directive classification was observed, and algal flow cytometry data were linked to the prevailing abiotic conditions to investigate biotic-abiotic interaction. Monitoring on the upper River Kennet highlighted the challenges associated with undertaking *in situ* analytical monitoring without mains electricity. Resampling of the data at lower sampling frequencies demonstrated that within the point-source dominated catchments, daily monitoring was sufficient for accurate load estimation in the River Enborne.

<footnote n="1">¹University of Reading, Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Reading, RG6 6AB, United Kingdom</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxon., UK, United Kingdom</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Environment Agency, Fobney Mead, Reading, UK, United Kingdom</footnote>
# Soil-atmosphere trace gas exchange: the importance of lateral water fluxes and groundwater as controlling variables

K. Butterbach-Bahl¹, R. Kiese¹, M. Dannenmann¹

¹Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meterology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Emissions of the greenhouse gases N₂O and CH₄ from soils are dominating their respective global atmospheric budgets. So far, most of the research has focused on assessing how land use and land management such as fertilization are affecting the sink and source strength of soils for CH₄ and N₂O. Little attention has given on elucidating how soil hydrology, e.g. groundwater fluctuations or lateral transport of nutrients, and its variability across landscapes and seasons is affecting soil-atmosphere exchange processes, thereby creating hotspots e.g. in riparian areas. That is surprising since soil moisture is a major controller of N₂O and CH₄ fluxes and neglecting soil hydrology at landscape scales might have led to a misjudgement of emission sources. Here we will present a literature review about the importance of topography, groundwater distance and lateral flows for soil ecological conditions, soil microbial processes (such as denitrification and methanogenesis) and associated soil-atmosphere GHG exchange processes and provide a conceptual framework describing how e.g. future changes in climate and soil hydrological conditions may feedback on soil-atmosphere GHG exchange.
# From Earth Explorers to Sentinels: ESA's Earth Observation Programmes - achievements, current status and plans for the future

M. Rast¹

¹ESA-ESRIN, Directorate for Earth Observation Programmes, Frascati, Italy

Explaining the complex processes of Earth remains a paramount challenge at the beginning of the third millennium. Earth observation satellites are important to improve the understanding of such processes. This knowledge forms the basis for the development of current and future measurement systems for science and applications.

ESA has more than forty years experience in developing and managing Earth observation satellites. With its flagship satellites ERS-1/2 and Envisat the Agency laid the foundations for a wealth of scientific studies and the development of many applications. Amongst others, their observations underpinned the trend of global change, having detected an accelerated trend of global warming and sea level rise.

With their successor satellites, the much smaller and scientifically more focussed 'Earth Explorer' Missions - dedicated to specific aspects of our Earth environment whilst demonstrating new technology in space - ESA continues to provide the scientific community with increasing insights on how the Earth functions as a system. Earth Explorer missions focus on the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and the Earth's interior with an overall emphasis on learning more about the interactions between these components and about the impact of human activity on natural Earth processes.

Distilling needs expressed in the international context, ESA is also developing a new family of missions called Sentinels specifically for the operational needs of the Copernicus Programme of the European Commission.

The presentation will not only sketch achievements as attained by its currently operating Earth Observation satellites, but also explain the status and prospects of ESA's Earth Observation programmes such as Copernicus and the suite of science-driven Earth Explorer missions.
# The impact of ecological pressures and pulses on the forest ecosystems in the Tatra National Park, Slovakia

P. Fleischer<fnref n="1" />, P. Fleischer jr<fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="3" />

A natural Norway spruce forest dominates in the Tatra National Park (TANAP) in northern Slovakia. Several environmental and human-induced factors shaping the forest status and its dynamic have been monitored in a systematic way for several decades. Among the key factors are pollution and climate extremes. The impact of pollution culminated in the 1980-90s, but the alterations in the soil properties still endanger forest growth and its vitality. Despite a significant increase of pH in precipitation, the critical load for acid deposition is still exceeded. Further increase of nitrogen input into acid, nutrient poor soils poses a high risk for acidification, reduction of primary productivity and reduction of soil buffer capacity. More than 100 years of local meteorological observations confirm tendency of air temperature increase, especially during growing seasons. After longer rain free periods (> 10 days) drought symptoms were observed even in higher altitudes. Consequent bark beetle (Ips typographus) outbreaks occurred regularly, especially in combination with large windfalls.

An extremely severe windstorm hit the TANAP´ forest in 2004. A downslope bora-type wind laid down concentrated area of 12 000 ha (2.3 mil m<fnref n="3" />) of mostly mature spruce forest with admixture of European larch and Scotch pine. Historical documents have confirmed that a large-scale destruction by downslope winds have periodically affected the same territory before. These events explain synchronous occurrence of tree species with contrast light demands; larch and pine versus spruce, in forest stands before the disturbance. Dendrochronological analysis confirmed a 40-50 year cycle of large windfalls. Roughly 10% of affected forest belonged to the core zone of TANAP and was intently left for natural development without any forestry intervention. Intensive research and monitoring of status and processes in the affected ecosystem was initiated by MPI Jena and the Research station of TANAP in 2005. Many institutions from Slovakia but also from abroad joined the collaborative research and monitoring programme in consequent years. The research sites, each approximately 100 ha, representing: managed, extracted windfall (EXT), and unmanaged (NEX), were chosen on localities with comparable site conditions (altitude, slope, geology, soil, vegetation, etc.). The forest unaffected by the windstorm was chosen as a reference site. Later, new sites representing fire and bark beetle impact areas became a part of long-term monitoring of natural disturbances in TANAP.

We summarize up to date results from an interdisciplinary research and monitoring of the dynamics of microclimate and vegetation parameters and processes (succession, energy and C fluxes) gained by both terrestrial and remotely sensed data. Beside a progressive trend of regeneration indicated by increasing diversity and primary production, we describe destructive impact of bark beetles, which, so far, destroyed more than 7000 ha of mostly natural spruce forest. The impact of subsequent windfall management on bark beetle infestation and a current forest status is discussed, as well as possible impact of projected climate change on future forest and forest pests. At the end we propose to apply some findings in adaptive forest management to keep TANAP´ forest more resilient and stable for provisioning of diverse ecosystem services in long term.

<footnote n="1">¹State Forest of Tatra National Park, Research station and Museum, Vysoke Tatry, Slovakia</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Technical university, Ecology, Z, Slovakia</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Technical university, ecology, Zvolen, Slovakia</footnote>
# Understanding hydrologic partitioning: Combining mechanistic modeling, global sensitivity analysis and signature exploration to understand controls on catchment-scale hydrologic behavior

T. Wagener¹

¹University of Bristol, Civil Engineering, Bristol, United Kingdom

Headwater streams are the most abundant portions of the river network but the least monitored. As such, we have a limited understanding of headwater stream behaviors and how they are influenced by catchment properties such as topography, geology, and vegetation. Given the lack of runoff monitoring within headwater streams, improving an understanding of how catchment properties influence hydrologic behavior is necessary for transferring information from instrumented areas to ungauged sites. We utilize this concept to understand physical controls on similarities and differences in hydrologic behavior in the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest catchment. We use a physically-based catchment-scale model, the Distributed Hydrology-Soil-Vegetation Model (DHSVM) combined with global sensitivity analysis to investigate modeled and actual controls on a range of model-predicted hydrologic behaviors (i.e. states) across multiple time scales. We want to improve our understanding of headwater catchment runoff behavior within this framework by directly relating physical properties of a given catchment to process-based predictions of hydrologic behavior, i.e. signatures. We find that across different hydrologic fluxes, including streamflow, evapotranspiration, and snow water equivalent change, only a few vegetation and soil parameters control the variability in hydrologic behavior in space and time. This framework has strong potential to inform how similarities and differences in headwater characteristics can influence the variability in spatially and temporally varying hydrologic signatures. It also allows us to understand the value of mechanistic models for hypothesis testing in the presence of potentially large uncertainties.
# State, challenges and options of pedogenetic modelling at pedon and landscape scales

P. FINKE¹

¹Ghent University, Geology and Soil Science, GENT, Belgium

Pedogenetic modelling describes the co-evolution of various soil properties over time-scales of centuries to millenniums, and therefore is relevant for the assessment of past and future human impacts on soils (and vice versa). Although first modelling attempts date back to the 1970's, it is only since about 15 years that quantitative soil and landscape development models evolved beyond single purposes like assessments of erosion, biocide and nitrate leaching, soil acidification, etc. towards more integrated models. Reasons for this step forward are technical (improved computational capacity and algorithm development), data-related (development of parameterization and calibration methods) and knowledge-related (improved understanding of interactions and feedback mechanisms at various scales).

At present 2 schools of soil-landscape development models can be distinguished. One school typically addresses the pedon (1-D) scale, the other focuses on the landscape scale. A literature review reveals differences in (e.g.) process coverage and degree of empiricism in the models and in the degree of field verification, and indicates how the 2 approaches can benefit from each other. An overview of the achievements in pedon-scale modelling and of the challenges that still exist (regarding limitations caused by model assumptions, process coverage, parameterization and calibration and computational costs) informs about development issues. Additionally, experiences will be shared and options will be presented on to how to use pedon-scale models to obtain landscape-scale results. An overview of cases on pedogenetic modelling at the landscape scale informs that probably the major needed improvement is a higher process-coverage in a functional or mechanistic way. 3-D modelling of soil hydrology is an essential activity to allow flexible analysis of future climates on soilscape development, but is not yet commonly implemented in landscape-scale development models. These desired improvements invoke challenges of computational efficiency and of model parameterization. Pedon-scale models can serve as testing ground for process-modules to be finally included in 3D-landscape models. Thus, there are various motives for the 2 schools to interface more often.

One often neglected issue in model parameterization at pedogenetic timescales is the uncertainty associated with the boundary conditions imposed on the model. The effect of such uncertainty on simulated soil properties is still hardly known and should be a matter of research. Some tentative results will be shown. Adequate reconstructions of climate, vegetation and land use history are needed, for instance to be able to use today's measured soil data to calibrate model parameters in model runs of centuries or millenniums.
# Global Experimental Design using Critical Zone Observatories – the Update from Beijing

Steve Banwart¹

¹The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Earth's Critical Zone (CZ), the thin surface layer from the top of the tree canopy to the top of unaltered bedrock that sustains human activity, is under intensive pressure from climate change and growth in human population and wealth.

Critical Zone Observatories (CZOs) have been established globally during the past seven years to intensively investigate the complex interactions of rock, soil, water, air and organisms that regulate CZ properties and determine the availability of life-sustaining resources. CZOs address a key component of emerging Earth Systems science with a defining focus on fundamental process understanding across spatial and temporal scales.

National funding councils of China, USA, UK, France and Germany jointly convened in May 2014 an international workshop in Beijing, China. The aim was to bring together these funders with international science leaders in order to advance the implementation of a coordinated, jointly funded, global programme of research that matches the urgency of major societal challenges and achieves international leadership in Critical Zone science advances and impact.

The workshop developed the following 4 thematic areas of critical zone research:

1. Mechanistic linkages in flows and transformations of energy, material and genetic information across the vertical and geospatial extent of catchments and aquifers as ecological-geophysical units,

2. Model hindcasting of CZ evolution, interpreting the present, and forecasting the future change and global impacts,

3. The Response, Resilience, and Recovery of the CZ to Perturbations of Environmental Change, and

4. Quantitative 3D characterisation of the critical zone including fluxes and reservoirs.

The workshop programme combined plenary presentations on current advances and future frontiers in Critical Zone knowledge with working group sessions. The workshop activities aimed to identify the key scientific questions, objectives and outline research methods, and the key features of required networks of CZOs to address the science questions.

The workshop outputs identified initial steps to establish methods for common observations, governance and data sharing and management. The funders confirm broad multi-national support for the science agenda and the aspirations to develop an international programme of CZO research. Actions were agreed to help develop international collaboration and funding. This includes dissemination of workshop outputs, popular and technical science articles, and continuing discussion between funders and the science community. It is the aim of the scientific community to have the framework for a multilateral CZ programme and a roadmap to deliver this, in place by the end of 2014.
# Hot spots and hot moments of biogeochemical cycling at aquifer-river interfaces

S. Krause¹

¹University of Birmingham, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Birmingham, United Kingdom

The transport and transformation of carbon and nitrogen between surface waters and groundwater are significantly altered during their passage across aquifer-river interfaces. Recent investigations have substantially improved the understanding of controls of biogeochemical turnover rates, outlining a critical impact of exchange fluxes, temporal and spatial coincidence of reaction partners and streambed residence times. Still, there is little understanding of the drivers of the widely observed strong spatial and temporal variability of interlinked carbon and nitrogen turnover at aquifer-river interfaces, including hotspots (locations) and hot moments (time periods) of increased reactivity. Previous research, predominantly with a surface water perspective, has mainly focused on the impact of bedform controlled hyporheic exchange fluxes and the chemical transformation of surface solutes transported along a hyporheic flow path. While such studies may explain nutrient turnover in the hyporheic zones of low-order streams in rather pristine headwater catchments, they fail to explain observations of spatially and temporally more variable nutrient turnover in streambeds with higher structural heterogeneity and relevant concentrations of autochthonous carbon and nitrogen.

The "Leverhulme International Hyporheic Zone Research Network" has therefore developed an interdisciplinary combined experimental and model-based strategy to investigate physical controls on hyporheic exchange fluxes and residence time distributions, reactive solute and heat transport and implications on hyporheic and benthic fauna along a biogeographical and catchment gradient. Investigations combining smart tracer applications with distributed sensor networks in multi-scale nested monitoring schemes and numerical model studies to integrate process knowledge from mesocosms to artificial channels and stream reaches highlight the potential impact of small-scale streambed structural variability on spatial patterns of hyporheic exchange flow, residence time distribution and the development of hotspots of biogeochemical cycling in hyporheic zones. Physical manipulation studies proved the significance, sensitivity and resilience of biogeochemical, microbial and ecological functioning of identified hotspots to environmental change.

As an open and interdisciplinary project the network is striving to extend previous investigations to a wider range of streambed environments including ephemeral conditions and as well as the investigation of biotic feedback functions on solute transport and biogeochemical cycling.
# Modelling and evaluating long-term impacts on ecosystem services: experiences from LTER-site research

M. Forsius¹

¹Finnish Environment Institute, Helsinki, Finland

Ecosystems generate a range of goods and services important for human well-being, collectively called ecosystem services. Over the past decades, progress has been made in understanding how ecosystems provide services and how service provision translates into economic value. Nonetheless, the losses of ecosystem services continue more rapidly than ever. Efforts have been made to define 'planetary boundaries' for the major impacts and changes (Rockström et al. 2009). Research in this field is also of great national science and strategic need regarding topics such as ecological restoration, ecological compensation and sustaining ecological security. It has still proven difficult to move from general pronouncements about the tremendous benefits nature provides to people to credible, quantitative estimates of ecosystem service values. Large efforts are currently devoted to develop methodologies for deriving spatially explicit values of ecosystem services across landscapes (Fu et al. 2013).

Sites belonging to national and international LTER (Long-Term Ecosystem Research) networks (www.lter-europe.net) provide excellent data and infrastructures for conducting process research and developing methods for developing ecosystem service concepts. The impacts of climate change on key ecosystem services at LTER sites in Finland have been studied (Forsius et al. 2013). The methods developed and used included remote sensing, derivation of impact scenarios, dynamic modelling, laboratory experiments, interactive workshops and expert judgment. The results clearly indicated not only complex interactions between the different ecosystem processes but also trade-offs between the ecosystem services. Climate change was predicted to have both positive and negative effects on key ecosystem services in Finnish conditions, the results being sector-specific and scenario-specific. Provisioning services like food and timber production would largely benefit from increasing temperatures and prolongation of the growing season in the cool Finnish conditions (with e.g. estimated increases in growth rates of trees up to 80% and the introduction of a wider selection of crops), although increasing occurrence of factors such as fungal diseases and insect outbreaks were estimated to cause increasing risks. On the other hand, climate change was predicted to pose a major threat to several endangered species, water and air quality, and tourism services dependent on present climate conditions. Goal conflicts between maximizing service production and meeting environmental quality objectives were also identified. Adaptation options and impact thresholds identified together with local enterprises and experts were also documented.

Vihervaara *et al.* (2013) conducted a literature study to evaluate the potential of the international LTER-network (ILTER, www.ilternet.edu) for studying and monitoring of environmental changes and ecosystem services at a global level. It was concluded that integrating and synthesizing the collected data should be prioritized for future cooperation, and integrated in decision-making. Standardized monitoring schemes and techniques should also be considered for future steering of ILTER collaboration.

Forsius, M. Anttila, S., Arvola, L. Bergström, I., Hakola, H., Heikkinen, H.I., Helenius, J., Hyvärinen, M., Jylhä, K., Karjalainen, J., Keskinen, T., Laine, K., Nikinmaa, E., Peltonen-Sainio, P., Rankinen, K., Reinikainen, M., Setälä, H., Vuorenmaa, J. (2013). Impacts and adaptation options of climate change on ecosystem services in Finland: a model based study. *Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability* 5: 26-40. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.01.001

Fu, B., Forsius, M. and Liu, J. (2013). Ecosystem services: climate change and policy impacts. Editorial overview. *Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability* 5: 1-3. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2013.02.003
Rockström J., Steffen W., Noone K., Persson A., Chapin F.S. III, Lambin E.F. et al. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. *Nature* 461: 472-475.

Vihervaara, P., D'Amato, D., Forsius, M., Angelstam, P., Baessler, C., Balvanera, P., Boldgiv, B., Bourgeron, P., Dick, J., Kanka, R., Klotz, S., Maass, M., Melecis, V., Petřik, P., Shibata, H., Tang, J., Thompson, J., and Zacharias, S. (2013). Using long-term ecosystem service and biodiversity data to study the impacts and adaptation options in response to climate change: insights from the global ILTER sites network. *Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability* 5: 53-66.
doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2012.11.002
Dynamic Soil Landscapes: the impact of agricultural soil erosion on soil functioning.

K. Van Oost<fnref n="1" />, Z. Wang<fnref n="1" />, T. Hoffmann<fnref n="2" />, T. Vanwalleghem<fnref n="3" />, S. Doetterl<fnref n="4" />, S. Bouchoms<fnref n="1" />, G. Govers<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="5" />, F. Wiaux<fnref n="6" />, M. Vanclooster<fnref n="6" />

Under natural conditions, soil systems are considered to be sustainable as the loss of soil material by erosion is approximately balanced by the production of soil as a result of weathering. A shift from natural to agricultural land use removes the protective natural vegetation and this typically increases soil erosion by one to two orders of magnitude, thereby accelerating physical erosion well over equilibrium levels.

Accelerated rates of erosion under intensive land use call into question the assumption that soil profile characteristics can be considered static. There is increasing awareness that accelerated erosion and deposition leads to the rapid evolution and significant heterogeneity of basic soil characteristics (eg soil thickness, horizon development, and hydrology) and that this should be accounted for when assessing the services provided by soils - e.g. storage and cycling of organic matter and nutrients, production and consumption of GHG and production of biomass. The evolution and significance of erosion-induced vertical heterogeneity is currently not well represented in soil biogeochemical models and state-of-the-art Earth System Models. This lack of attention to processes responsible for vertical and horizontal heterogeneity reflects both the perception that they can be ignored for short-term process investigation because of the long timescales (ie decades to centuries) over which they operate and the lack of models and data with which to explore the interactions.

There has been a growing interest in applying empirical quantitative techniques to predict soil properties from landscape attributes but few process-based models that allow a quantitative understanding of the dynamic processes described above are currently available. In this paper, we discuss the global significance of agricultural soil erosion in relation to soil functioning. We then present several case studies at different spatial and temporal scales where both empirical- and model-based approaches are used to understand the continuously evolving spatial heterogeneity of the soil system at the scale of landscapes in relation to weathering and soil carbon stabilization.

<footnote n="1">¹UCL, TECLIM, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²University of Bonn, Geomorphology, Bonn, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴University of Gent, ISOFYS, Gent, Belgium</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵University of Leuven, EES, Leuven, Belgium</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶UCL, Earth and Life Institute, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium</footnote>
Environmental monitoring based on palaeo-records

B. van Geel¹

¹Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, Paleoecology and Landscape Ecology, Amsterdam, United Kingdom

The geological record contains long-term evidence for a variety of global environmental perturbations. Palaeoclimatological and palaeoecological studies use environmental 'proxies' to obtain information preserved within natural archives such as sediments, peat, tree rings, corals and ice sheets. During this presentation the focus will be on climate and environmental change during the Quaternary (last ca. 2.6 million years), but attention will also be paid to a review by Hönisch et al. (2012) about events of elevated atmospheric CO₂, global warming and 'ocean acidification' that occurred during the past 300 million years. Information on the amplitude, dynamics (rapidity) and ecological impact of abrupt climate and environmental changes in the past will be presented and potential driving mechanisms (among which greenhouse gasses and solar forcing) will be discussed. Some examples of the impact of past climate changes on human societies will be given.

As a first example the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) will be discussed. The PETM, which occurred 56 million years ago, was an ocean acidification event that may well be comparable with changes that may happen in the ocean in the near future as a result of human-induced increases of atmospheric carbon. Within a relatively short period, 2000 - 6000 Pg of carbon was released into the atmosphere. As a consequence the sea surface temperature rose about 5 °C in the tropics and even 9 °C in the temperate zone. In the future, marine ecosystems may suffer from lowered pH values because the present increase of atmospheric CO₂ is faster than natural carbonate compensation.

An increasing amount of palaeo-records about the start and development of human impact on natural ecosystems, biodiversity, soils and atmospheric chemistry during the Holocene has become available. Such information can be taken into account as a reference for present and future environmental change.

As a second example the evidence for abrupt climate change that occurred 2800 years ago ('2.8 event') will be presented. It was triggered by a temporary decline of solar activity that caused an abrupt increase of precipitation and cooling in the temperate zone and dryness in the tropics. This 2.8 event had a strong impact on people living in areas that were marginal from a hydrological point of view.

Various palaeo-records point to hypersensitivity of the climate system to relatively small changes in solar activity, and the effects of the present decline of solar activity may interact with anthropogenic global warming.

Hönisch, B. et al., 2012. The geological record of ocean acidification. Science 335: 1058-1063.
# Challenges in Scaling Up Flux Measurements of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Terrestrial Ecosystems

R. Desjardins¹

¹ECORC, Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Canada

R. Desjardins¹, D. Worth¹, M. Mauder², A. VanderZaag¹, E. Pattey¹, W. Smith¹, B. Grant¹

¹ Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Science and Technology Branch, 960 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1A 0C6 Canada

² Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Kreuzeckbahnstraße 19, 82467 Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Countries that have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have to report to the UN the magnitude of their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on an annual basis. As most inventory estimates are still highly uncertain, flux measurements are being collected at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales to improve the accuracy of these estimates. An overview of the strengths and weaknesses of commonly used micrometeorological techniques to measure the fluxes of CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O is presented. Using examples drawn from large and multi-scale biosphere-atmosphere flux measurement research projects, we examine some of the challenges in obtaining representative flux measurements across terrestrial ecosystems. We show the importance of determining the spatial and temporal variability of fluxes when quantifying the GHG exchange of an ecosystem and highlight the lack of homogeneity in GHG sources for various ecosystems. We found that when an area is flat, extensive and homogeneous, both tower and aircraft-based flux measurements agree very well. However, for heterogeneous ecosystems, we demonstrate that it is essential to use a combination of tower- and aircraft-based measurements to obtain representative and accurate fluxes. We use a footprint model to relate livestock information to aircraft-based flux estimates of CH₄ emissions for a mixed agricultural region and show that the observed discrepancy between bottom-up (inventory-based estimates) and top-down (aircraft-based measurements) estimates of CH₄ emissions could only be resolved by accounting for non-target source contributions such as wetlands. For N₂O emission estimates, the combination of aircraft- and tower-based measurement systems is also essential to obtain daily estimates at a regional scale. On a scale of approximately 50 km², similar N₂O emissions were measured on any one day from two similar agricultural regions 20 km apart. However, because of the unevenness of rainfall, large spatial differences in N₂O emissions are commonly observed. Finally, we demonstrate that biophysical models such as DNDC provide regional estimates of N₂O emissions from agricultural regions comparable to the combination of aircraft and tower-based flux measurements. This is important considering that fully tested and verified process-based models are essential to improve the accuracy of GHG inventory estimates.
# DROUGHT AND FLOOD MONITORING AND FORECASTING FOR SUB-SAHARA AFRICAN WATER RESOURCES AND FOOD SECURITY

J. Sheffield¹

¹Princeton University, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton, United States

Of all natural disasters, droughts and floods arguably have the most impact in terms of the humanitarian and economic costs, and ecosystem stresses. Recent droughts and floods worldwide have caused severe problems for local populations such as food insecurity across the Horn of Africa, and lives lost and economic impacts in the Balkans. The expectation is that these extreme events will become more severe and frequent in the future under climate change. Mitigation of the impacts requires advance warning of developing conditions and enactment of plans to reduce vulnerability. A key element of this is an early warning system that monitors evolving hydrological conditions and water resources storage, and provides reliable and robust predictions at short time scales and out to several months, as well as the capacity to act on this information. This talk describes the development and implementation of a seamless monitoring and prediction framework for sub-Saharan Africa that allows consistent assessment of water variability from historic to current conditions, and from seasonal and decadal predictions to climate change projections. At the center of the framework is a water cycle monitoring and seasonal forecast system based on land surface hydrological modeling driven by satellite remote sensing precipitation to predict current hydrological conditions, flood potential and the state of drought. Seasonal climate model forecasts are downscaled and bias-corrected to drive the land surface model to provide hydrological forecasts and drought products out to 6-9 months. The system has been implemented and runs operationally in regional climate centers in West and East Africa. The multiple challenges for advancing our capability to provide both early warning at short-term to seasonal time scales and risk assessment under climate change, will be discussed as well as the challenges in translating forecasts into useable information by local institutions. In particular, many African regions suffer from lack of data and we discuss the use of low-cost environmental sensors and new satellite products for terrestrial hydrology and vegetation for improved monitoring and prediction.
# Mesoscopes for Hydropedology in the Critical Zone

H. Lin<fnref n="1" />

While landform and vegetation can now be mapped with high resolution (e.g., using LiDAR and IKONOS), we lack adequate tools and techniques for in situ, precision, continuous, and noninvasive mapping and sensing of the subsurface. This has hindered our understanding, modeling, and management of the hidden part of the Critical Zone. In this presentation, I will discuss some mesoscopes (i.e., devices or techniques that are between microscopes and telescopes) to shed light on subsurface complexity and related Critical Zone processes. I will then illustrate two mesoscopes that we have used in the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory for understanding hydropedologic processes: 1) a catchment-wide soil moisture sensor network that has revealed a hidden subsurface flow network, and 2) an enhanced time-lapsed GPR that can detect hillslope subsurface lateral flow network. Continued efforts are needed to further develop and enhance mesoscopes for mapping and sensing the complex hidden Critical Zone.

<footnote n="1">¹Penn State Univiversity, Dept. of Ecosystem Science and Management, , United States</footnote>
# Lake monitoring and recently observed limnological changes

M. O. Gessner¹, P. Kasprzak¹, J. Lewandowski¹

¹Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Departments of Experimental Limnology and Ecohydrology, Stechlin and Berlin, Germany

Lake monitoring at a few selected locations around the world has continued for decades. It serves to detect variation in seasonal and interannual patterns, long-term trends, and singular events that stand out by strong deviation from the norm. The information gleaned from these efforts has been instrumental in formulating the single most important theoretical framework in lake plankton ecology (the PEG model), in detecting large-scale spatial patterns driven by meteorology, and in evaluating impacts on lake ecosystems caused by both local and global drivers. Manual point measurements of physical and chemical variables characterizing lakes have been gradually replaced by increasingly automated records. The resulting high-resolution data provide unprecedented opportunities for detecting hitherto concealed patterns at fine and broad scales and for establishing a real-time ecology. This has prompted grass-root initiatives in Europe (NETLAKE) and worldwide (GLEON) aiming at cross-site coordinated analyses of lake monitoring data. Challenges new to aquatic scientists include handling of Big Data streams and extraction of useful information. New technologies now also facilitate capturing biological variables at high resolution. For example, bulk algal biomass can be routinely estimated by means of chlorophyll sensors, and species composition can be assessed at high taxonomic resolution by in-situ flow cytometry. Even determining photosynthetic rates may be possible in the near future based on in-situ measurements of delayed chlorophyll fluorescence, adding to continuous assessments of whole-ecosystem productivity and respiration derived from continuous records of oxygen concentrations. Further big leaps are expected when it becomes possible to measure gene activities with sensor technologies. Combined with modelling and large-scale experimental approaches, the future and recent technological advances in lake data acquisition and analysis promise to do no less than revolutionize current lake monitoring approaches.
# Hydrological ground measurements, remote sensing (,and models)

N. van de Giesen¹

¹Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

There is a very good remedy against data scarcity, namely to go out and measure the phenomena one is interested in. The more unevenly distributed the phenomena of interest are over space and time, the more one has to measure to capture the variability. Unfortunately, often where variability is highest or most relevant, we have the fewest observations. Think of cities, mountainous areas, or arid regions. We see, however, that monitoring networks are in decline. We do so many projects and data campaigns, which is helpful, but we could use a better general strategy towards hydrological data stewardship.

Clearly, remote sensing plays an important role in data scarce areas. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, outside South Africa, less than 200 weather stations report in an operational sense to international networks that feed weather predictions. Basically, satellite observations are often the only data available. Satellites are typically designed to provide data that are difficult to obtain on Earth's surface. There has been little effort, however, to develop systematically ground observation networks that enhance satellite observations.

Here, we present some early thoughts and results from the Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO, www.tahmo.org) with respect to observations that enhance satellite observations. TAHMO is an initiative to design, build, deploy, and operate 20,000 measurement stations in sub-Saharan Africa. Design follows a set of rules that serve easy deployment and operation, such as absence of moving parts and cavities, self- and cross calibration of sensors, and low cost. Operation focuses on the long-term financial sustainability of the network. Raw data will be made available for scientific use but value added products will be produced to financed maintenance and operation. This keynote will not so much focus on TAHMO as a whole but focus on sensors that are robust, affordable and add value to satellite observations.
# The Catchment Isoscape: A Meta-Model for Stable Isotope Tracers at the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory

C. Duffy¹, E. Thomas¹, G. Holmes¹, P. Sullivan², E. Boyer³, G. Bhatt¹, K. Gaines⁴, D. Eissenstat⁴, L. Jin²

¹Penn State University, Civil & Environmental Engrg, University Park, United States

²Penn State University, Geoscience, University Park, United States

³Penn State University, Forestry, University Park, United States

⁴Penn State University, Ecology, University Park, United States

In this paper we use the concept of a catchment "isoscape" to interprete a 5 year (2008-2013) stable isotope experiment of δ²H and δ¹⁸O observations in precipitation, soil water, tree xylem water, groundwater and stream flow at the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory. The isoscape serves as a convenient framework for characterizing the space-time patterns of water isotopes in precipitation, vegetation, soil, groundwater and streamflow at the site. The paper first develops the conceptual-experimental framework of the Shale Hills experiment, interprets δ²H and δ¹⁸O observations in terms of the physical processes controlling the storage, pathways, exchanges and time scales of water in the catchment, and then develops a data representation or regression-model for mapping δ²H and δ¹⁸O across the catchment based on simple climatic (air temperature) and geomorphic variables. Evidence from δ²H and δ¹⁸O observations generally confirms the conceptual model for the hydrology of Shale Hills (Lynch, 1974), while extending our understanding of catchment flow pathways, the signature of soil-plant water storage, and the impact of gravity flow in macropores for recharge and lateral flow. The meta-model describes the rapid attenuation of isotope profiles with depth similar to thermal and soil moisture profiles, which results from mobile-immobile water exchange, water table rise and lateral groundwater flow and mixing. Seasonal dynamics of δ²H and δ¹⁸O show how cold-season processes dominate the annual baseflow runoff response, how vegetation interacts with a changing soil moisture signature, and tropical storms in late summer along with rain-snow dynamics contribute unique isotopic event signatures in runoff. The paper evaluates the prospect of the meta-model to support a comprehensive computational model for flow, transport, age and residence time of water operating in the catchment. The model is described and demonstrated.
# Overview of potential applications of cosmic-ray probe in hydrology

M. Zreda¹

¹University of Arizona, Hydrology & Water Resources, Tucson, AZ, United States

Soils and water contained in soils participate in or control all processes that occur at and near the land surface, such as evapotranspiration, rainfall generation, partitioning of precipitation, water uptake by plants, partitioning of incoming energy into latent and sensible heat, biogeochemical processes, and nearly all life processes on earth. Many methods have been developed to measure properties of soils (for example hydraulic conductivity), and states and fluxes of water into and out of soils (for example soil moisture and evapotranspiration). But most methods apply at small spatial scale (a point) that is not compatible with the resolution of land-surface models. What is needed are scale-integrating methods for measuring states and properties at the appropriate scale. The recently-developed cosmic-ray soil moisture probe has the footprint of hectometers and is therefore a good scale integrator, particularly in its mobile version.

The cosmic-ray method uses the response of cosmogenic fast neutrons hydrogen present in materials at the land surface. The fast neutrons that are produced in air and soil travel in all directions within the air-soil-vegetation continuum, and in this way an equilibrium concentration of neutrons is established. The equilibrium is shifted in response to changes in the water content of the soil. Adding water to soil results in more efficient moderation of neutrons by the soil, causing a decrease of fast neutron intensity above the soil surface, where the measurement is made. Removing water from the soil has the opposite effect. Thus, by measuring the fast neutron intensity in the air the moisture content of the soil can be inferred. The support volume is a cylinder with the diameter of a few hectometers and a depth of a few decimeters. Measurements can be made using stationary or roving probes. The former provide time series of moisture over the hectometer footprint, the latter gives moisture for swaths of land along driving routes.

The cosmic-ray method was originally designed for measuring soil moisture at a fixed location. Much progress has been made in the past five years. Recent work has shown that the probe can be used for measuring other pools of water, such as snow on the ground and on canopy, water in vegetation, and possibly water on canopy; that it can be used in a moving vehicle to map moisture over large areas; and that it can be used to measure hydraulic conductivities of variably-saturated soils at hectometer scale. These applications are discussed briefly below.

Biomass can be measured with cosmic rays because plants contain significant amounts of water whose presence near the land surface affect the moderation of neutrons and therefore their intensity. The proof-of-concept study involved measurements in a forest and a recently-deforested site nearby. The difference in neutron intensities between the sites was converted to biomass water equivalent, and then to dry biomass. The dry biomass was found consistent with allometric measurements at the forested site, showing that the cosmic-ray method is feasible.

Spatial mapping of soil moisture using a mobile probe, or rover, is possible with two recent advances: the development of a larger probe that has high count rate and is equipped with GPS to monitor position as the probe moves; and the development of a universal calibration function that permits conversion of neutron intensity to soil moisture without local calibration. Several rover surveys have been conducted in the past, including a year-long project in Tucson, Arizona, USA, which generated maps of soil moisture for a 1000-km² at 22 different times, permitting mass balance calculations for the entire duration.
Hydraulic conductivity can be inferred from measured soil moisture and mass balance of water in soil. Following a precipitation event, soil moisture slowly decreases over many days. The drying curve provides information on changes of moisture with time, and its temporal derivative gives change of storage. That change is then used in a mass balance equation, which can be converted to infiltration and then to unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. Our first study showed that cosmic-ray derived effective hydraulic conductivity is consistent with an (upscaled) average of 36 point measurements, suggesting that the cosmic-ray method is feasible.
# From observation to prediction through model-data integration: the importance of multiple constraints

M. Reichstein¹, N. Carvalhais¹, S. Zaehle¹

¹Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

There is a growing consensus that land surface models (LSMs) that simulate terrestrial biosphere exchanges of matter and energy must be better constrained with data to quantify and address their uncertainties. Ecosystem observation sites which measure the land surface exchanges of carbon, water and energy using the eddy covariance technique, but also ecosystem state variables, are one prime source of data for model improvement. Here we outline a multi-stage process for 'fusing' (i.e. linking) LSMs with ecosystem data to generate better models with quantifiable uncertainty. We then review the problem of equifinality, whereby multiple combinations of parameters can produce similar model output. Fusing multiple independent and orthogonal observation - in particular fluxes and pools provides a means to limit equifinality. We then show how parameter probability density functions (PDFs) from MDF can be used to interpret model validity, and to propagate errors into model outputs. We conclude by identifying five major model-data fusion challenges for the FLUXNET and LSM communities: 1) to determine appropriate use of current data and to explore the information gained in using longer time series; 2) to avoid confounding effects of missing process representation on parameter estimation; 3) to assimilate more data types, including those from earth observation; 4) to fully quantify uncertainties arising from data bias, model structure, and initial conditions problems; and 5) to carefully test current model concepts (e.g. PFTs) and guide development of new concepts.
# Global estimates of surface and root zone soil moisture from the assimilation of satellite microwave observations into a land surface model

R. Reichle¹, G. De Lannoy¹

¹NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, United States

Satellite L-band (1.4 GHz) microwave observations from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS; launched in 2009) mission and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP; to be launched in November 2014) mission provide information on surface soil moisture and soil temperature. By merging these satellite observations into a land data assimilation system, estimates of root zone soil moisture can be obtained that combine the information in the satellite observations with that provided by the land modeling system and its surface meteorological forcing inputs.

This presentation will provide an overview of the soil moisture assimilation system developed for the SMAP Level 4 Surface and Root Zone Soil Moisture (L4_SM) data product. The product will provide global estimates of soil moisture and related land surface states and fluxes on a 9 km grid every three hours with a latency of a few days. The L4_SM system consists of a variety of components, including the NASA Catchment land surface model, an L-band microwave radiative transfer model (RTM), and an ensemble Kalman filter. Global soil and RTM parameter datasets were developed specifically for the L4_SM system using recent soil texture databases and advanced optimization techniques that ensure unbiased land model estimates to the extent possible. Residual systematic differences between the assimilated microwave brightness temperature observations and the corresponding model estimates are addressed through climatological rescaling.

The algorithm calibration and validation effort is based on a variety of approaches. In situ observations from dense networks play a key role as they permit validation at the spatial scale of the assimilation estimates. Furthermore, the assimilation system is verified by analyzing its internal diagnostics, including the observation-minus-forecast residuals and the analysis increments. We demonstrate the calibration and validation effort by evaluating a prototype L4_SM data product that is based on the assimilation of SMOS observations. This evaluation illustrates the challenges that result from inconsistencies in the complex set of ancillary system inputs (land model and RTM parameters, rescaling coefficients, and model and observation error parameters). Such inconsistencies are commonplace because of unavoidable changes in operationally produced, global surface meteorological forcing data in connection with the complex and costly process of generating a complete set of ancillary inputs for the soil moisture assimilation system.
# Ecosystem research: towards an integrated research infrastructures paradigm

A. Chabbi¹

¹INRA-URP3F, Lusignan, France

Terrestrial ecosystems represent a critical zone that provide key ecological services to human populations in the form of food, fibre and energy, climate protection and nutrient recycling, to name a few. In this critical zone, human activities are directly or indirectly generating major environmental pressures, such as pollution, global warming, and the destruction and alteration of natural habitats. Altogether, these global changes result in a rapid erosion of biodiversity and a major perturbation of ecological systems and services. It is therefore vital to understand how ecological systems respond and adapt to such pressures and perturbations and to test sustainable land use and innovative green technologies in order to address the main societal challenges we face today. Nowadays, a major focus in ecological and agricultural sciences is on the production of quantitative, experimentally reproducible and testable approaches using advances in our ability to characterize complex ecological systems from genes to ecosystem levels.

The talk will provide an overview of a new ESFRI FP7 distributed research infrastructure called AnaEE (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems) as an integrated experimental approach to better understanding ecosystems functioning. Furthermore the need for complementary experimental (field studies/ ecotron facilities) that require sophisticated equipment and instruments, technological advances, and strong theoretical foundations through conceptualization and modelling of ecosystem functioning will be also addressed.
# On the use of lysimeters and ecotrons to study the fate of pollutants in soil plant ecosystems

C. Leyval, et al.<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />

Terrestrial ecosystems are strongly affected by human activities and environmental changes. To understand how ecosystem functioning is impacted, and how it evolves with time there is a need for long term studies and pluridisciplinary approaches. Research has progressed on transfers, processes, including modeling aspects, at small and very small scales (micro- and nano-scales) and at large scales (higher than thousands of km), but the meso-scale (from the block of soil to the catchment scale) still requires investigation. The complexity of soil ecosystems, the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of what is called the « critical zone » for humans are still a challenge to be addressed. Lysimeters and ecotrons can be used as complementary tools to field and laboratory studies and are well adapted to that meso-scale and to study the critical zone. Lysimeters were initially used for measuring water balance in soil and ecotrons for studying ecosystem functioning, but now a large range of equipment are developed, from mesocosms to ecotrons, to study terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and in France two ecotron plateforms are now recognized as national research infrastructures.

Lysimeters and ecotrons can be used to monitor the fate of pollutants in soil and soil-plant ecosystems, and their response to environmental stress. In the context of environmental changes, multiple contamination and multiple stress (for example salinity/heavy metal pollution, nutritionnal constraints and pollution) are more often encountered and should be considered. They can also be used to simulate natural and constructed ecosystems, to study the impact of environmental parameters such as pollution on soil and ecosystem processes, therefore being intermediate between laboratory controled experiments and less controled field studies. Finally, they can be used to study the retroaction of living organisms (interactions soil-plant-microorganisms) on soil functioning and property, and remediation or restoration techniques (ecological engineering). A few examples of such studies, from the GISFI experimental station at Homécourt (France) and other sites, will be presented. Some of the limitations of lysimeters and ecotron studies and need for developments will be underlined : sampling strategies and sensors, that should be further developped, the lack of coupled models (hydro-bio-geochemical processes, different scales), the data conservation, management and availability.

<footnote n="1">¹CNRS Université de Lorraine, LIEC UMR7360 Site Aiguillettes, Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy cedex, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Université de Lorraine, LIEC UMR7360, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy cedex, France</footnote>
# TERENO observatories - validation sites for a sar-based soil moisture retrieval under vegetation cover

T. Jagdhuber¹, I. Hajnsek¹, K. P. Papathanassiou¹

¹German Aerospace Center, Radar Concepts, Wessling, Germany

## ABSTRACT

Since 2006 four terrestrial environmental (TERENO) observatories have been established in different climatic regions across Germany to monitor vulnerable ecosystems and their environmental changes. They are fully equipped with in-situ/ground-based measuring instruments, which are constantly recording key variables of the atmo-, bio- and hydrosphere. The measurements within the observatories stretch from point, field to hill slope scale. They allow precise single-spot investigations as well as spatial pattern analyses of the different state variables. Moreover, the TERENO observatories are operated on a long-term basis (at least for a decade), in order to facilitate the determination and quantification of environmental changes. Hence, continuity is given to investigate fast and slow varying process in and between the different spheres.

Therefore these observatories represent ideal validation sites to evaluate remote sensing-based, geo-physical parameter retrieval algorithms of the different spheres. In this way, the calculated estimates from the remote sensing algorithms can be compared and validated with the in situ/ground-based measurements of the observatory for a quality assessment.

L-band fully polarimetric SAR data were acquired within several airborne flight campaigns of DLR's F-SAR sensor from 2011 to 2013 in all four TERENO observatories. The polarimetric SAR data are used for soil moisture estimation at high spatial resolution and under distinct agricultural vegetation cover. For this, a newly developed, iterative, generalized, hybrid decomposition and inversion approach is applied for a flexible soil moisture estimation [1]. In order to account for the temporally and spatially varying agricultural vegetation cover, an iteration-adaptive, generalized scattering model of the vegetation volume was implemented in the moisture retrieval algorithm. After inversion, the estimated soil moisture results are validated in detail with the available in situ soil moisture data of the respective observatories. For this, additional, intensive field measurement campaigns were conducted concurrently to the SAR acquisitions to measure soil moisture on different agricultural fields with varying crop types.

[1] T. Jagdhuber, I. Hajnsek & K.P. Papathanassiou, "An Iterative, Generalized Hybrid Decomposition for Soil Moisture Retrieval under Vegetation Cover Using Fully Polarimetric SAR," *Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing*, in minor reviews.
# Apparent Thermal Inertia for Soil Moisture Estimation in Agricultural Areas using Airborne Remote Sensing

D. Spengler¹, A. Steinberg¹, C. Hohmann¹, F. Schwonke², S. Itzerott¹

¹Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam - GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, 1.4 Remote Sensing, Potsdam, Germany

²Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources - BGR, Remote Sensing, Hannover, Germany

Soil Moisture Content (SMC) is one of the most important geophysical parameter needed by many scientific disciplines for example in the context of climate or hydrological modelling. Especially for agriculture it is the most important key variable that has directly impact on land use and agricultural yield. The direct determination of soil moisture is presently done by the interpolation of multiple point measurements that can be raised in different ways. This results in a very incomplete impression of the actual spatial distribution and is extremely time and cost consuming.

A wide range of approaches have been developed to derive soil moisture from remote sensing data offering the possibility to quantify the parameter soil moisture efficiently on different scales. The majority of the approaches rely on microwave sensors comprising microwave radiometers and scatterometers for global and regional scale and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) for local scale applications. Besides these established approaches an increasing number of studies rely on the derivation of soil moisture using thermal infrared remote sensing. In this context the concept of Apparent Thermal Inertia (ATI), that is defined as the resistance of an object to its heating for 1 K, depending on four parameters: Firstly, the heat capacity, secondly the density of a material, thirdly the thermal conductivity and fourthly the albedo of the object. The variations of the temperature of materials ΔT are depending on its thermal inertia. Low thermal inertias indicate low resistance to temperature changes, resulting in a high ΔT (e.g. dry soils). The opposite applies for materials with a high thermal inertia, e.g. wet soils. The concept allows the exploitation of the impact of soil moisture on T and ΔT by analysing thermal infrared data acquired at different daytimes.

The objective of this study is to gather information on SMC in the agricultural area of the DEMMIN test site of the TERENO Northeastern German Lowlands Observatory based on the ATI approach. Therefore helicopter based thermal remote sensing data (VarioCam HR) have been acquire at 09.07.2013 at five different daytimes (3, 7, 11, 15, 18 UTC) and also airborne hyperspectral AISA data at the same day. The proposed method combines these two data source based on the adapted approach of Xue and Cracknell (1995) for ATI calculation. To investigate the potential for the SMC retrieval of thermal image data acquired at different daytimes and not covering the maximum ΔT of a material, all combinations of thermal image pairs were analysed with the approach.

The results show the great potential of the ATI approach for SMC retrieval, but are strongly related to acquisition times and conditions of the available data sets. The results will be presented and discussed in terms of validation, limitation and future optimisation.
# The Usage of a Crane Platform for a Hyperspectral Mixture Analysis - First Experiences and Results

M. Förster¹, S. Itzerott², D. Spengler², A. Clasen¹,², B. Kleinschmit¹

¹Technische Universität Berlin, Geoinformation in Environmental Planning Lab, Berlin, Germany

²Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section 1.4: Remote Sensing, Potsdam, Germany

The detection of biophysical forest parameters as well as detailed tree-species information is of importance for monitoring ecosystem processes in woodlands. Especially floodplain forests play a crucial role in the storage of organic carbon as well as for preserving biodiversity. However, it is still difficult to interpret the spectral signal of a forest because the measured reflectance consists of a combination of different components, such as leaves, branches or understory vegetation. This relation of the components and the spectral signal is usually derived by a Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA). SMA approaches model a mixed spectrum as a linear combination of pure spectral signatures of its constituent components (endmembers), weighted by their sub-pixel fractional cover. These endmembers and their corresponding spectral signatures can be used to generate sub-pixel cover distribution maps by model inversion. Due to the size of forests and the difficult structure, there are only few studies that were able to measure above crown signals and crown components. The presented study uses measurement of forest components from a crane platform to relate them to measurement of a portable spectroradiometer.

On the 23 of May 2011, as part of the TERENO project, the GFZ put into operation a crane in Drönnewitz, a town located close to Demmin in Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Germany and belongs to the TERENO Northeastern Lowland Observatory. With a 45 meter long operating arm and a mast height of 45 meters, the crane can cover a forest area of approximately 6300 m². From this platform photographs as well spectral measurements were taken within the phenological period of 2012 (May to November). We evaluated 1,894 nadir images of different tree types (mainly Alder and Beech) along transects. The images were taken with a Canon EOS 5D (objective lens: Canon EF 85mm - f1.8 USM) approx. 10 meters above crown and approx. 40 meters above ground. Simultaneous, spectral measurements were recorded by an ASD FieldSpec4. Images as well as spectral information are measured at nine phenological stages between May and November 2012.

The images were reduced to the circular area matching with the measurement-area of the ASD sensor (foreoptics - 8° ~ 6 m²). They were processed in a semi-automatized knowledge-base using the software eCognition 8.9. The next step was the segmentation of the data, using the multiresolution segmentation algorithm (Scale Parameter: 40, shape: 0.1 / compactness: 0.5). The images were classified using the Nearest Neighbor approach for all crown components and direct thresholds for very bright and shadowed areas of the image. Training samples were selected for each class and include homogeneous and heterogeneous image objects spread over the entire images. For further processing of the SMA, the percentages of the crown components were calculated for all images.

The derived information on the crown components can be used to perform a hyperspectral mixture analysis in combination with the ASD-FieldSpec measurements, using linear and non-linear spectral mixture analyses. First tests indicated that the seasonal development of the crown components indicates a clear relation to the spectral signal and the acquisition date.

The object-based classification of forest crown components from nadir photographs is generally a valuable data-source to gain more information about the spectral mixture of a forest signal as well as about its phenological development. It is generally possible to derive information about the share of certain endmembers at a medium to high accuracy. However, accuracy could be increased by using a camera that includes near infrared information. The investigation on the seasonal development reveals more complex temporal pattern of the components (e.g. leaf types) than known before.
The study was connected to the "ForestHype" research project. The project is funded by the German National Space Agency DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Technology based on the Bundestagresolution 50EE1025. The authors would also like to thank the TERENO (Terrestrial environmental Observatories) Northeastern Germany Lowland Observatory for facilitating the intensive field campaign.
# Multitemporal RapidEye-data analyses of semi arid natural vegetation in the Negev, Israel along an climate gradient to assess and monitor the land use changes

C. Glaesser¹, S. Elste¹, C. Götze ¹

¹Martin Luther University, Remote Sensing, Halle, Germany

Natural vegetation in semi-arid environment is very sensitive in relation to meteorological variability of precipitation and long term changes. Phenological shifts are connected with climate changes and have many applicative, economic, and environmental impacts. Monitoring and assessment of this vegetation type is very important as an indicator for land use changes. The availability of satellite data, like Rapid Eye with high repetition time capability and high spatial resolution as well as the red edge band offers new possibilities of change detection of this land cover types, characterized by highly heterogenous distribution and typical life time cycle. The Sentinel- and Enmap-Mission will open new fields in research and application in the future.

The test site is located in Shaked Park and is part of the Negev Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site, Israel. It is a slightly hilly area and consist loessial soils. The long term annual average of rainfull of 200mm and occurs only in the winter season. The area is characterized by scattered perennial shrubs, and patches of annual plans. The soil surface is covered by biological soil crusts, lichens, and mosses, which are extremely sensitive to climate changes. The climatic changes are influencing heavily these ecosystems. Based on ground spectral measurements we could use a data set of RapidEye data for two different phenological season (2010/11, and 2012/2013) with clear differences in annual and distribution of rainfull. The paper shows the results of different indices, including crust index, and curvature indices as well as integration of the red edge channel. The results were discussed in relation to the meteorological differences (temperature, rainfull, and haze). The integration of phenological aspects enables the definition of the best time windows to detect the typical life cycle of the vegetation. So, we can separate between "seasonal variability" and "changes". The results were integrated in a climatic gradient within the country and are the database for the assessment and monitoring of the land use changes of natural vegetation as well as agricultural sites. The developed algorithm can be transformed to long term satellite data sets from the past and continued in the future and will transformed to different scales. The results are an important database for hydrological modeling as well for the management, use and protection of the environment. The results are directly compared with the goals of the TERENO-MED program.

Needless to say how much impact these changes have on biodiversity, agricultural production, ecology, management, and the society in general. The models and tools developed in the proposed project are of a general nature, and can be also applied to issues relevant to many sectors. Data is important for planning of sustainable landscape management through choice of suitable species and provenances, and suitable management practices.
# Mitigating Climate Change in Brazilian Agriculture Sector: Carbon in Soil Monitoring.

H. Pinto<fnref n="1" />, E. Assad<fnref n="2" />, S. Martins<fnref n="2" />, E. Pavão<fnref n="2" />, J. Groppo<fnref n="2" />

## Introduction:

Brazil presented a set of voluntary actions to reduce GHG emissions during the performance of COP - 15 in Copenhagen, with the goal of reducing emissions by 2020 between 36.1 % and 38.9 %, or approximately 1.2 billion tons of CO2 eq. To do so a program of voluntary actions was implemented, defined as follows: i) reduction of close to 80 % in the rate of Amazon deforestation and 40% in the Cerrado area, resulting in reduced emissions of approximately 669 million tCO2e; ii) adopt methods for rehabilitation of degraded pastures; iii) promote the integration of crops, livestock and forest; iv) expand no tillage planting and v.) increase of biological nitrogen fixation in agriculture, actions that would entail cutting emissions between 133 million to 166 million tCO2e. On the other hand, the government proposed to increase the energy efficiency with the use of biofuels (sugarcane ethanol and alternative sources of biomass), wind, small hydro generators and use in steelmaking coal from planted forests, totaling a reduction in emissions ranging from 174 million to 217 million tCO2 eq. Proposals of one Plan for Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change aimed at consolidation of an Economy of Low Carbon in Agriculture (ABC Plan) began to take effect in December of 2010 and will last until 2020. This plan considers, besides the reduction in GHG, an increase in agricultural productivity as a result of new technologies. The recovery of degraded pastures through proper soil management and fertilization, as well as the adoption of crop-livestock-forest Integration (IAFP) systems, in an area of 19 million hectares, corresponding to emission reduction from 101 million to 132 million tCO2eq by 2020.

The plan considers also that there is an increase on carbon storage in plant biomass and in soil, with smaller losses to the atmosphere, while it promotes an increase in capacity of the pastures, from 0.4 AU/ha ( animal unit per hectare ) to about 1.4 AU/ha. In this context, the objective of the project was to quantify carbon stocks in soil, as well as their net primary productivity (NPP) in areas with original degraded pasture, with crop-livestock integration (ILP), crop-livestock-forest integration (IAFP) and Agro forestry Systems ( SAF ) in all the states of Brazil.

## Method:

As part of the plan, soil samples were collected at a depth of 0-30 and 30-60 cm in 198 points distributed in the country. The samples were collected in areas under degraded and cultivated pastures, crop-livestock Integration and crop-livestock-forest Integration. Samplings were collected also in areas with native vegetation (reference area) for further comparison of the results. Chemical and physical analyzes were performed in soil samples, as well as rates of NPP at each collection point.

## Results and conclusions:

Some results showed that the replacement of the native vegetation handled by conventional grazing did not result in large losses of the soil C, confirming other studies where the amount of C not found in pasture degradation characteristics were well handled similar or greater amounts of C found in soil under native vegetation. The IAFP had the largest average C stocks accumulated throughout the soil profile, since the areas sampled were consolidated over two years with good management. The results demonstrate that crop-livestock integration and crop-livestock forest integration systems have the potential to store large amounts of carbon in the soil and in biomass, thus there is a real contribution to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases, resulting in significant increase in biomass production and to raise the carrying capacity of pastures, reducing the pressure for conversion to

<footnote n="1">¹State University of Campinas - UNICAMP, Center for Research in Meteorology and Climatology
Applied to Agriculture - Cepagri, Campinas, Brazil</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation - Embrapa-CNPTIA, Campinas, SP, Brazil</footnote>
pastures new areas. Finally the great gain of the implementation of agricultural techniques recommended by the Low Carbon Agriculture Plan established in Brazil can be considered as an innovated technological method for agriculture. Monoculture joins the system, allowing continuous production and carbon assimilation, which is only possible in tropical environments. The results show that Brazil can reach the goals in controlling GHG emissions by agriculture established in Copenhagen during COP 15.
# LandscapeDNDC - A process based model for biogeochemical ecosystem simulations from site to the regional scale: Applications, uncertainty quantification on the regional scale, coupled hydraulic nutrient transport and ecosystem biogeochemistry at catchment scale

E. Haas¹, R. Kiese¹, S. Klatt¹, D. Kraus¹, S. Molina Herrera¹, K. Butterbach-Bahl¹

¹Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Agricultural soils are the primary anthropogenic source of atmospheric N₂O. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from soils like CO₂, N₂O and CH₄ are net result of all physicochemical and biological processes involved in production, consumption and transport. These processes have a strong dependency on environmental factors like temperature, moisture, soil and vegetation properties or the land management. Therefore emissions occur with a high spatial and temporal variability giving rise to hot spots and hot moments. Quantifying sources and sinks of GHG for natural, agricultural and forest ecosystems is crucial for our understanding of impacts of land management on the biosphere-atmosphere exchange of GHG and for the development of mitigation options.

Numerical simulation models are increasingly used to estimate greenhouse gas emissions at site to regional and national scales and are outlined as the most advanced methodology (Tier 3) for national emission inventory in the framework of UNFCCC reporting. Process-based models incorporate the major processes of the carbon and nitrogen cycle of terrestrial ecosystems like arable land and grasslands and are thus thought to be widely applicable at various spatial and temporal scales and they are considered useful tools for integrating our knowledge of the key processes and drivers to estimate carbon and nitrogen (C and N) trace gas emissions from soils.

The high complexity of ecosystem processes mirrored by such models requires a large number of model parameters. Many of those parameters are lumped parameters describing simultaneously the effect of environmental drivers on e.g. microbial community activity and individual processes. Thus, the precise quantification of true parameter states is often difficult or even impossible. For regional model applications such as GHG emission inventories spatial model input data for initialization and climate data to drive model simulations are required at various scales. Such data is often attributed with high spatial uncertainty. As a result model uncertainty is not solely originating from input uncertainty but also subject to parameter-induced uncertainty.

So far regional modelling studies have focused on the simulation of site specific fluxes neglecting the importance of landscape fluxes of water and nutrients for GHG emissions e.g. downwind or downstream the site of nitrogen fertilizer application. Open key questions with regards to C and N cycling and feedbacks concern the spatial distribution and magnitude of hotspots and hot moments of C and N losses and the pathways of C and N losses to the atmosphere and hydrosphere and the redistribution of nutrients in the landscape.

Coupling the LandscapeDNDC ecosystem model to the CMF (Catchment Modelling Framework) hydrology model creates a modelling system capable to assess the C and N cycling and their feedbacks to crop growth and microbial processes on the landscape scale. The coupled system enables the simulation of lateral exchange of nutrients with the soil water fluxes and therefore to assess the C and N cycling on the landscape scale. We present simulation results of crop growth, nutrient cycling and resulting nitrous oxide emissions in a catchment as a result of coupled C & N cycling on the landscape.

Besides model applications on the site and regional scale, we present results of a parameter uncertainty assessment (PUA) versus input data induced uncertainty assessment (IDUA) of GHG emission inventories on the regional scale from arable soils of Saxony (Germany). For the IDUA the spatial domain (represented by 4042) is set up with spatially explicit soil properties and climate data and a region-typical 3-year crop rotation consisting of winter wheat, rape-seed, and winter barley. Main
soil physical properties of the regional input data are assigned with uncertainties like soil bulk density (~ 20 %), soil organic carbon content (~ 100 %), pH values (~ 0.25) and hydraulic properties (~ 20 %).
We have randomly sampled input data sets addressing these uncertainty ranges by Latin Hypercube
Sampling resulting in 600 regional input datasets to calculate 600 individual realizations of the regional
inventory. For the PUA we calculated regional inventories using joint parameter distributions for key
parameters describing microbial C and N turnover processes as obtained by a Bayesian calibration
study. We representatively sampled 400 different parameter vectors from the discrete joint parameter
distribution comprising approximately 400,000 parameter combinations and used these to calculate
400 individual realizations of the regional inventory.

Average N₂O emission from arable soils in the state of Saxony using the default IPCC emission factor approach (Tier 1) for direct emissions reveal an average N₂O emission of 1.51 [kg N / ha] due to fertilizer use. The mean resulting from the PUA was 1.43 [kg N / ha] with a median value of 1.05 [kg N / ha] In the regional uncertainty quantification the 20% likelihood range for N₂O emissions is 0.79 - 1.37 [kg N / ha] (50% likelihood: 0.46 - 2.05 [kg N / ha]; 90% likelihood: 0.11 - 4.03 [kg N / ha]). Respective quantities were calculated for nitrate leaching.

The IDUA leads to lower emissions with smaller uncertainty bandwidths for N₂O emissions but for increased NO₃ leaching levels with wider bandwidths. The input data uncertainty mainly driven by the uncertainty of the soil organic carbon content emphasizes the increase in NO₃ leaching.
Differentiated Disturbance Effects on Carbon Exchange of Forest Ecosystems

R. Grote¹, E. Haas¹, J. Hommeltenberg¹, M. Lindauer¹, R. Steinbrecher¹

¹Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

Climate change is not only affecting ecosystems by gradual changes of environmental boundary conditions, but can also act by triggering extreme events such as storms, fire or insect outbreaks. On the one hand, these events are already occurring more frequently which is a development expected to continue (Coumou & Rahmstorf, 2012), on the other hand such events can seriously alter the long-term carbon balance of forests. The latter effect is not well represented in regional and global models leading to a large uncertainty about sink strength of vegetation (Reichstein et al., 2013).

We therefore developed a new model routine for the ecosystem model LandscapeDNDC (Haas et al., 2013) to investigate the impact of different disturbances (storms, fire, insect outbreaks, and clearcuts) on carbon exchange. The investigation shows the sensitivity of decadal carbon exchange on the kind of disturbance, i.e. if trees or fraction of trees are exported or left at the sites, how the nutrient and water cycle is affected, and to which degree new vegetation can gradually replace the old trees. The model has been partly evaluated with measurements from sites of the EUROFLUX network (forest management), the Bavarian forest (windthrow), and from the TERENO site Schechenfilz. Scenario analysis include plot- and regional scale simulations for pine stands to explore short- and long term impacts of different disturbance with respect to carbon exchange.

Considering that different disturbances are prominent at different regions and that they show a different sensitivity to climate change, we expect that regional application of this model will make a valuable contribution for future quantification of forest ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, biomass provision, water retention, regional climate and air quality.

Coumou D. & Rahmstorf S. (2012) A decade of weather extremes. *Nature Clim Change*, **2**, 491-496.

Haas E., Klatt S., Fröhlich A., Werner C., Kiese R., Grote R. & Butterbach-Bahl K. (2013) LandscapeDNDC: A process model for simulation of biosphere-atmosphere-hydrosphere exchange processes at site and regional scale. *Landscape Ecology*, **28**, 615-636.

Reichstein M., Bahn M., Ciais P., Frank D., Mahecha M.D., Seneviratne S.I., Zscheischler J., Beer C., Buchmann N., Frank D.C., Papale D., Rammig A., Smith P., Thonicke K., van der Velde M., Vicca S., Walz A. & Wattenbach M. (2013) Climate extremes and the carbon cycle. *Nature*, **500**, 287-295.
# Spatial distribution of hydroxylamine and its role to aerobic N₂O formation in a Norway spruce forest soil

S. Liu¹, D. Weymann¹, N. Gottselig¹, I. Wiekenkamp¹, H. Vereecken¹, N. Brüggemann¹

¹Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Agrosphere (IBG-3), Jülich, Germany

Hydroxylamine (HA) is potentially involved in soil N₂O formation as a crucial intermediate in the oxidation of ammonium to nitrite. However, the determination of HA concentration in natural soil samples has not been reported until now. Here, we determined the HA concentrations in organic (Oh) and mineral (Ah) layers of 110 soil samples collected from a spruce forest (Wüstebach, Eifel National Park, Germany) using a novel approach, based on the fast extraction of HA from the soil at a pH of 1.7, the oxidation of HA to N₂O with Fe³⁺, and the analysis of produced N₂O using gas chromatography (GC-ECD). In a second step, N₂O emission rates were determined by means of aerobic laboratory incubations of 3 g soil in 22-mL vials. Subsequently, the spatial distribution of soil HA concentrations and N₂O emission rates in the Oh and Ah layers of the whole sampling area were analyzed using a geostatistical approach. The correlations among soil HA, N₂O emission rate, pH, soil C, N, Fe, Mn and soil water content (SWC) were further explored. The HA concentrations ranged from 0.3-37.0 µg N kg⁻¹ dry soil and 0.02-11.4 µg N kg⁻¹ dry soil in the Oh and the Ah layer, respectively. The spatial distribution of HA was similar in both layers, with substantial spatial variability dependent on soil type, tree density and distance to a stream, e.g., HA concentration was greater at locations with a thick litter layer or at locations close to the stream. N₂O emission rates showed a similar pattern as soil HA concentrations, with higher rates in the Oh layer than in the Ah layer. N₂O emission rate exhibited the highest correlation with soil HA content in the Oh layer, while soil NO₃⁻ content explained N₂O emissions best in the Ah layer, along with SWC, Mn and C content. HA concentration was negatively correlated with pH and positively correlated with SWC in the Oh layer, while positively correlated with C and N as well as NO₃⁻ content in the Ah layer. Moreover, Mn content was the most important factor for HA recovery at the specific extraction conditions. The results demonstrated that HA is a crucial component for aerobic N₂O formation and emission in spruce forest soils. Mn may also play a key role to the aerobic N₂O emission due to the chemical reaction with HA. Further studies should focus to the relationships between HA, Mn and aerobic N₂O emission in other ecosystems.
Is the dry zone of the land shifting poleward?

C. Yi¹, S. Wei¹, K. Jensen¹, G. Hendrey¹

¹Queens College, CUNY, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Flushing, United States

The land is divided into the cold part (CP) and warm part (WP) by a threshold value of mean annual temperature 16°C., which is dictated by a data-driven analysis of climate-carbon dynamics across FLUXNET research sites. The analysis of the FLUXNET data indicates that the CO₂ transfer from the atmosphere to terrestrial ecosystems in the WP is dominated by soil water availability. Climate data show that the WP has been expanded and the CP has been diminished since 1976. The poleward expansion of frontal boundary of the WP is coincident with the poleward extension of the Hadley Cell (HC) due to both have been driven by warming climate. It is well known that the northern descending branch of the HC in north hemisphere creates extreme dry conditions. The frontal boundary (or the shifted area) of the WP has been transformed by global warming into more vunerable regions where weather gradients are stronger, ecosystems are more sensitive to even slight increases in water deficit, crop yield is reduced by extreme heat waves, and vegitated land cover and pastroral population are reduced. An expansion of the global network monitoring CO2 flux to target the identified shifted areas would provide data that could improve our ability both to model these regions as they undergo further transitions and to assess the likely impacts on climate as a consequence of altered CO2 flux and increased soil aridity.

**Acknowledgement:** This research was supported by NSF Grants ATM-0930015 and PSC-CUNY ENHC-44-83.
# Real-time measurement of site specific N₂O isotopic composition above intensively managed grassland reveals controls on N₂O source process dynamics

B. Wolf¹,², B. Tuzson², L. Merbold³, C. Decock³, L. Emmenegger², J. Mohn²

¹Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Switzerland

²EMPA, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Air Pollution and Environmental Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland

³ETHZ, Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Zürich, Switzerland

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) and the single most important stratospheric ozone-depleting substance. Since pre-industrial times, its atmospheric concentration has increased by 19% and at least 60% of anthropogenic N₂O emission can be attributed to food production. Thus, the growing human population and associated demand for meat will most likely accelerate the rate of atmospheric concentration increase, making efficient mitigation strategies a vital aim of research. N₂O is considered to be mainly produced by nitrification and denitrification, but the relative contribution of these processes to total emission is uncertain, hampering the development of efficient mitigation strategies. Measurement of the four main N₂O isotopic species (¹⁴N¹⁵N¹⁶O / ¹⁵N¹⁴N¹⁶O / ¹⁴N¹⁴N¹⁸O / ¹⁴N¹⁴N¹⁶O) has been suggested as a powerful tool to trace the biogeochemical cycle of N₂O and to allocate its emission sources as studies with microbial pure cultures and mixed population systems revealed characteristic isotopic signatures for the most important production processes. However, current studies suffer from limited spatial and temporal resolution due to the combination of discrete flask sampling in conjunction with laboratory-based mass spectrometric analysis. We recently demonstrated that a quantum cascade laser (QCL) based absorption spectrometer is capable of simultaneously measuring the three main N₂O isotopomers at trace levels.

Here we present results from the first long-term field measurement campaign conducted on intensively managed grassland in central Switzerland during three months. A modified state-of-the-art laser spectrometer (Aerodyne Research, Inc.) employing a mid-infrared cw-QCL (4.54 µm) and a novel astigmatic multipass cell with 204 m optical path-length was connected to a N₂O preconcentration unit. High analytical performance in combination with the applied calibration strategy resulted in excellent long-term precision of 0.20, 0.12 and 0.11‰ for δ¹⁵N, δ¹⁵N and δ¹⁸O which was determined from repeated preconcentration and measurement of target gas from a compressed air tank. This instrumental setup allowed investigating responses of N₂O isotopic composition in soil-emitted N₂O to management events, soil temperature, soil water content, ammonia, and nitrate concentrations. Controls on N₂O isotopic composition will be discussed as well as the potential for partitioning of microbial source processes.
# More than just CO₂: Multiple trace gas exchange measurements at a temperate mountain grassland

G. Wohlfahrt¹, A. Hammerle¹, L. Hörtnagl¹,², I. Bamberger¹,², A. Hansel³

¹University of Innsbruck, Institute of Ecology, Innsbruck, Switzerland

²ETH Zürich, Grassland Sciences, Zürich, Switzerland

³University of Innsbruck, Institute of Ion Physics and Applied Physics, Innsbruck, Austria

**Question:** Ecosystems exchange a large number of different trace gases to/from the atmosphere, however the vast majority of FLUXNET sites quantifies only the fluxes of carbon dioxide and when assessing the carbon or greenhouse gas balance neglect other carbon or greenhouse gas fluxes. This causes an overestimation of the role of carbon dioxide exchange for the ecosystem carbon and greenhouse gas balance, the magnitude of which is largely unconstrained

**Methods:** Here we use the eddy covariance method (and variants thereof) with a large variety of analytical methods to quantify the exchange of multiple trace gases to/from a mountain grassland. The monitored trace gas fluxes cover: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide and several volatile organic compounds.

**Results:** The main result of our study is that carbon dioxide is the major contributor to the gaseous carbon and greenhouse gas budget at this temperate mountain grassland, which however may be significantly modulated by other trace gases may, at least during some years. Differences between source and sink periods for the different trace gases and the underlying drivers are discussed and annual budgets, for some compounds covering multiple years up to decades, are presented.

**Conclusions:** Multiple trace gas flux measurements help to elucidate the importance of the exchange of carbon dioxide for the ecosystem carbon and greenhouse gas budget.
# Measurements of Surface Fluxes at City-Atmosphere Interfaces: Case Studies at High Residential Area and Urban Park in Seoul Metropolitan Area

J. Hong¹, J.-W. Hong¹, K. Lee¹

¹Yonsei University, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

A city is using more than 70% of natural resources and more than 50% of world population lives in urban area in spite of its small land fraction. In this respect, cities make impacts on microclimate and weather and it is important to properly monitor turbulent exchanges of momentum, heat, and greenhouse gases from a city to the atmosphere. Particularly, like other Asian megacities, Seoul is vulnerable to climate change because of a combination of its rapid growth, geography, typhoons, heat waves and flood. The lack of our understanding of the city-atmosphere interaction hinders us from making adequate urban planning and mitigation in this area. For proper quantification of turbulent fluxes from the city to the atmosphere, two micrometeorological towers have been established at two typical land types (i.e., high residential area and urban park) in Seoul metropolitan area. We report observation data from the 1 year of surface flux measurements at these two sites. Surface energy partitioning at the high residential area shifted significantly after the town re-development. Vegetation in the urban park shows carbon uptake during sunny daytime but even during main growing season, the vegetation was a carbon source due to large nighttime ecosystem respiration. Net CO₂ release during summer season was about 5.8 gC day⁻¹ and 2.8 gC day⁻¹ in the high residential area and urban park, respectively. Our study confirms that not only traffic volume and local heating, but also urban vegetation play a role in controlling carbon balance in a city and urban park management must be carefully done for reducing greenhouse gas emission from the urban park.
# Importance of dissolved greenhouse gases leached from soil: insights from the lysimeter network TERENO-SoilCan

W. Daniel¹, N. Brüggemann¹, T. Pütz¹, H. Vereecken¹

¹Forschungszentrum Juelich, Agrosphere Institute, Juelich, Germany

## Question

Measurements of climate-relevant trace gases from soils are frequently undertaken in contemporary ecosystem studies and substantially contribute to our understanding of greenhouse gas balances of the biosphere. While the great majority of such investigations builds on closed chamber and eddy covariance measurements, where upward gas fluxes to the atmosphere are measured, fewest concurrently consider greenhouse gas dissolution in soil water and leaching losses via the vadose zone to the groundwater. Here we present annual leaching losses of dissolved nitrous oxide (N₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) from arable, grassland, and forest lysimeter soils from three sites differing in altitude and climate. We aim to assess their importance in comparison to direct N₂O emission, soil respiration, further leaching parameters of the C- and N cycle, and finally to the greenhouse gas balance.

## Methods

The lysimeters are part of the Germany-wide lysimeter network initiative TERENO-SoilCan, which investigates feedbacks of climate change to the pedosphere on a long-term scale. Soil water samples were collected weekly from different depths of the profiles by means of suction cups. A laboratory pre-experiment proved that no degassing occurred under those sampling conditions. We applied the headspace equilibration technique to determine dissolved gas concentrations by gas chromatography.

## Results

Soil solution and seepage water of all lysimeters were consistently supersaturated with N₂O and CO₂ compared to water equilibrated ambient air. In terms of N₂O, leaching losses increased in the ascending order forest, grassland, and arable soils, respectively. In case of the latter soils, we observed a strong variability of N₂O, with dissolved concentrations up to 87 µg N L⁻¹. However, since seepage discharge of the arable lysimeters was comparatively small and mostly limited to the hydrological winter season, leached N₂O appeared to be less important than direct N₂O emissions. Based on dissolved CO₂ concentrations, dissolved organic carbon, and seepage water discharge, our measurements revealed annual leaching losses of 6.8, 8.8, and 2.3 mg C m⁻² from the forest, grassland and arable lysimeter soils, respectively.

## Conclusions

In conclusion, the results of the first year of our investigations provide evidence that dissolved greenhouse gases should be considered in studies which aim to assess full greenhouse gas balances, particularly in ecosystems with small net ecosystem greenhouse gas budgets where hydrological conditions favor microbial activity and high leaching losses.
# The Agricultural Landscape Laboratories (AgroScapeLabs): a research platform to study relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem functions and land use at the landscape scale

K. Pirhofer-Walzl<fnref n="1" />, B. Schröder<fnref n="2" />, M. Glemnitz<fnref n="3" />, N. Blaum<fnref n="4" />, J. Joshi<fnref n="5" />, J. Eccard<fnref n="5" />, F. Jeltsch<fnref n="4" />

Biodiversity, including genetic, organismic, interaction, and landscape diversity, plays a central role in ecosystems functioning and in the provisioning of ecosystem services. This central role is increasingly threatened by ongoing changes in climate, biogeochemical cycles and land use causing a general decline in biodiversity. Current approaches that enable scientists to gain in-depth understanding of the interactions between biodiversity, land use, climate and ecosystem functions, focus primarily on extensively used, cultivated landscapes and protected areas, whilst large-scale investigations in agricultural landscapes are scarce. And yet only 25% of endangered species in Germany live in protected areas which make up only 2% of the country's territory. Thus, the majority of endangered species (i.e. 75%) occur in agricultural and forest areas (50% and 30% of the areas, respectively).

The Agricultural landScape Laboratories (AgroScapeLabs) intend to close this research gap. AgroScapeLabs is a research platform designed as a large-scale laboratory that offers scientists the opportunity to carry out large-scale experiments and manipulations within a multifunctional agricultural landscape. The 450 km<fnref n="2" /> AgroScapeLabs study area, located north of Berlin in the TERENO North-East region of Germany, is mainly used for agricultural production. It is characterized by a continental/Atlantic transitional climate (annual average of 8.4°C air temperature and 486 mm precipitation) with long dry phases in the spring and with cold winters. Loamy soils enable intensive farming of mainly winter cereals, rape, sugar beet and maize.

The AgroScapeLabs are used as a platform for natural landscape experiments where drivers and consequences of biodiversity change are explored across various temporal and spatial scales bridging different trophic levels and different ecosystems (e.g. aquatic and terrestrial). In particular, the AgroScapeLabs allow to link land use and the corresponding dynamics of landscape structures with the dynamics of populations via the space and resource use of individuals. Thus, biodiversity research within AgroScapeLabs aims to explicitly link climate and spatio-temporal correlations of land use patterns with locomotion patterns of key groups of different taxa (e.g. mammals, birds, insects, vascular plants, micro-organisms, fungi), and their contribution to ecosystem functions and services. Ongoing research projects in the AgroScapeLabs range from plant-microorganism-interactions, and the interrelations between lyme-disease and landscape complexity, to movement ecology of mammals in temporally and spatially dynamic agricultural landscapes, the ecosystem services provided by insectivorous bats, or the relationship between plant diversity in habitat islands (kettle holes) and agricultural landscape structure.

<footnote n="1">¹Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V., Institute for Landscape Biogeochemistry, Müncheberg, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Technical University of Braunschweig, Environmental Systems Analysis, Institute of Geoecology, Braunschweig, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) e.V., Institute of Land Use Systems, Müncheberg, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴University of Potsdam, Plant Ecology and Conservation Biology, Potsdam, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵University of Potsdam, Institute of Biochemistry and Biology, Potsdam, Germany</footnote>
# Linking biodiversity conservation and livelihood strategies: A new approach for sustainable rangeland management

H. Khedrigharibvand<fnref n="1" />, H. Azadi<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />, P. De Maeyer<fnref n="1" />, F. Witlox<fnref n="1" />

Rangelands play a significant role in sequestrating atmospheric carbon dioxide, conserving biodiversity and especially in providing livelihood benefits to pastoralists. Further, their biodiversity has contributed directly through provisioning (e.g., feed, food, fresh water, wood, fiber, genetic resources, and medicines) and regulating ecosystem services (e.g., climate *regulation*, flood and disease control, and water purification) and indirectly through supporting ecosystem services to many outcomes of livelihoods, including increased well-being, more income, reduced vulnerability, more sustainable use of rangelands and improved food security.

Pastoralists have lived within rangeland environments and have been able to more freely use the services and biodiversity that these ecosystems provide as well as adaptation to changes in ways that have improved their livelihoods. In other words, biodiversity at genetic, species and ecosystem levels has traditionally played an important role in reducing the vulnerability of production systems of pastoralists and improve their livelihood strategies. However, recently, the biodiversity of rangelands is under several serious threats resulted from climate change, invasive alien species, pollution, habitat change, habitat loss, fragmentation, over exploitation, population pressure, socio-economic pressures, unsustainable management practices, limited public awareness and lack of integration of biodiversity considerations into local land-use plans. These factors have further threatened the sustainability of livelihood strategies of pastoralists. On the other hand, biodiversity loss has been realized as one of the main causes for poverty of pastoralists and vulnerability of their livelihoods. Consequently, conserving rangelands biodiversity while sustaining pastoralists' livelihood has become a great challenge.

Recently, a set of livelihoods strategies for contributing to sustainable livelihoods (SLs) has been recognized, including livestock-based livelihoods, resource based livelihoods and supportive strategies. Achieving a balance between these strategies in order to approach sustainable rangeland management (SRM) is *essential, but a difficult task*. These strategies are increasingly threatened by a loss in fauna and flora, changing management practices and policy deficiencies in supporting pastoralists' livelihoods. All these have made the biodiversity conservation of rangelands difficult to achieve. In order to conserve rangelands biodiversity, livestock-based livelihoods must be supported while promoting resource-based livelihoods along with strengthening supportive strategies. This shows the need to integrate livelihoods strategies into principles of biodiversity conservation to ensure SRM.

Although the integration of rangelands biodiversity with other development and environment activities has been increasingly understood, the linkage between biodiversity conservation and livelihood strategies is not yet acknowledged. This gap demands for the application of integrated approach in development of the national strategy on preservation and sustainable use of biodiversity that could address livelihoods strategies as well. Even though biodiversity protection has been acknowledged as one of the actions proposed to improve social and economic conditions for rangeland inhabitants, there is little awareness on the important role of biodiversity conservation in livelihood strategies and vice versa. To fill this gap, the SLs approach should further be recognized as a superior framework that can link up livelihood strategies of pastoralists with rangelands biodiversity.

Accordingly, this paper first addresses factors threatening biodiversity. Secondly, the paper discusses SLs approach in SRM and reviews literature on factors affecting SLs by exemplifying the main (recent) challenges of SRM. Then, an effort is made to explain the link between biodiversity conservation and the *most important livelihood strategies* of pastoralists including ecotourism and payment for ecosystem services. Afterwards, the paper discusses some supportive strategies such as clear financial incentives and subsidies as well as certain specific legal considerations including appropriate

<footnote n="1">¹Ghent University, Department of Geography, Ghent, Belgium</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Hasselt University, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt, Belgium</footnote>
land tenure and a tax regime to protect rangelands ecosystem services as well as livelihood security that encourage pastoralists to conserve biodiversity. Finally, the paper draws some policy implications to conserve biodiversity.

**Keywords:** Biodiversity conservation, vulnerability, sustainable livelihoods, policy making, supportive strategies.
Collecting Basal area information from field photography.

B. Sparrow<fnref n="1" />, B. Ward<fnref n="1" />, J. Armston<fnref n="2" />, M. Scheafer<fnref n="3" />, J. Muir<fnref n="2" />, A. Tokmakoff<fnref n="1" />, N. Thurgate<fnref n="1" />, A. van den Hengel<fnref n="4" />, A. Lowe<fnref n="1" />, S. Phinn<fnref n="2" />

This paper describes collaborative work conducted within Australia's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) between the Ausplots and AusCover facilities and the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies (ACVT) to develop new photopoint collection methodologies for use by terrestrial ecologists. These photopoints are being collected at Ausplots survey sites throughout Australia along with a wide suite of environmental measures, including a range of soil, vegetation species and structure and genetics information, with currently around 402 sites out of 550 collected. These collections are intended to augment the ecological data collected at each site. Similar measures are also being collected at Auscover calibration and validation sites.

Our photopoints incorporate three sets of overlapping photographs, each collected from exposure points at the vertices of an equilateral triangle with sides of 2.5 m located around the centre point of the field site. The photos from each exposure point typically overlap by 50% and at least one photo in each series include a calibration target mounted on a pole at the centre of the exposure points. These photographs are then processed to create a range of data products.

Seamless photo panoramas and point clouds are also produced allowing a three dimensional view of the site and potentially allowing similar analysis, albeit at lower precision, to that of terrestrial Lidar systems. This is used to measure stem diameters, and calculate basal area, which are summed for the site, providing a measure of basal area per hectare when the visible distance is taken into account. This method is potentially more accurate than rapid techniques such as the use of basal wedges/prisms and significantly quicker and cheaper than accurate measures such as measuring DBH for all stems or utilising a terrestrial Lidar. Given that the method allows rapid collection (<30 minutes per site) of this information we anticipate that this method will be widely applicable.

Validation of this photopoint method against field measures and terrestrial lidar that was acquired coincidently is progressing and we look forward to further tests to quantify the accuracy of these methods and to account of the effect of occlusion. We are working on automating the extraction of this information and delivering these products freely online. A prototype should be available in time for the conference. We also hope to investigate the feasibility of the automatic extraction of growth form of species in the photographs to assist with site structural assessment.

<footnote n="1">¹Adelaide University, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Adelaide, Australia</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²The University of Queensland, Joint Remote Sensing Program, Brisbane, Australia</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³CSIRO, Marine and Atmospheric Research, Canberra, Australia</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴Adelaide University, Australian Centre of Visual Technologies, Adelaide, Australia</footnote>
# Farmland bird abundance in Central Germany: trend analysis based on species traits and land use

M. Frenzel¹, J. Everaars¹, O. Schweiger¹

¹Helmholtz centre for Environmental Research, Community Ecology, Halle, Germany

The TERENO initiative (TERrestrial Environmental Observatoria; www.tereno.net) of the Helmholtz Association is aiming at long-term data sets covering abiotic and biotic parameters. This unique large-scale project aims to catalogue the long term ecological, social and economic impact of global change at the regional level. One focus of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research is on birds in agricultural dominated landscapes within the Harz/Central German Lowland Observatory in Central Germany. Within an area of 50 x 90 km in Saxony-Anhalt farmland birds were monitored at six sites of each 4 x 4 km following the point-stop count method (20 points per site). Data have been collected in 2001, 2009, 2012, 2013 and 2014. We combine bird abundance data with species traits, land use, landscape composition and configuration to explain the changes in abundance of different ecological groups.
# Trait dependent responses and stability of bee communities as an indicator for the provision of pollination services

J. Everaars¹, O. Schweiger¹, M. Frenzel¹

¹Helmholtz centre for Environmental Research, Community Ecology, Halle, Germany

There are a fair number of studies describing how bee communities respond to weather conditions and local land use, but not always with consistent results. We were especially interested if and how life history traits like body size, social status, nesting preference and food specialization level affect these responses to weather and land use. The findings allow conclusions about the pollination service provided by bee communities in the investigated test landscapes.

We used bee sampling data (with two seasons per year and three pan-trap sampling rounds per season) from three subsequent years within the long term monitoring initiative TERENO (TERrestrial ENviromental Observatoria). Within in a 50 x 90 km area in Saxony-Anhalt bees were sampled in six landscapes of 4 x 4 km varying in local weather conditions and land use, with 16 sampling locations per landscape (considering land use in 200 m radii buffer zones around each trap). We interpret the results with respect to the capacity of bee communities to provide pollination services within the selected landscapes in terms of abundance of individuals and the diversity of bee species traits relevant for pollination.
# Standardizing and maintaining micrometeorological long-term observations – First experiences from the ICOS approach

M. Herbst¹

¹Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Braunschweig, Germany

The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) is a European research infrastructure that was created to improve our understanding of the carbon cycle and its driving factors and to verify the effectiveness of policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Standardized measurement protocols based on micrometeorological state-of-the-art techniques and central calibration facilities, as well as continuous and representative long-term observations of GHG concentrations and fluxes are the fundamental principles used in the ICOS network. Some specific challenges for the standardization of field measurements will be discussed using data examples from individual ICOS sites. Several examples of data products covering various surface and ecosystem types will also be shown. Observations made during the preparatory phase of ICOS indicate that a large part of the inter-annual variability in GHG exchange between the earth surface and the atmosphere is caused by ecosystem disturbance and/or management activities. Even when automated long-term measurements are successfully standardized and comparable to each other, a better understanding of the driving factors of GHG exchange requires also regular ground-based visual inspections of the field sites and additional biological observations and records of human activities.
The Danish Hydrological Observatory HOBE

K. H. Jensen¹

¹University of Copenhagen, Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Copenhagen K., Denmark

The Danish hydrological observatory - HOBE - was established in 2007 based on funding from the private VILLUM FOUNDATION (http://www.hobecenter.dk). The Skjern catchment located in the western part of Denmark was selected as the site for the hydrological observatory.

The observatory was established with the overall purpose to obtain a better understanding of the water balance at catchment scale. Previous investigations have documented that water balance closure has been difficult to obtain based on independent measurements of in- and outgoing fluxes at catchment scale. This is due to both measurement and theoretical limitations.

Catchments are subject to a time-space variability of landscape characteristics and the hydrological processes occur and interact across a multitude of spatial and temporal scales. Often fluxes, process understanding and parameters are determined at a smaller scale and a pertinent problem is to scale findings and observations from one scale to another.

To address these challenges long-term observations, dedicated measurements and experiments of in- and outgoing fluxes as well as fluxes between the different hydrological compartments are carried out. Classic state-of-the-art measurement techniques in combination with novel sensor technologies are used to observe and measure the multi-scale spatial and temporal patterns of the land surface and subsurface systems. The project takes advantage of the recent developments within ground-based, air-borne and space-borne non-invasive geophysical, meteorological and remote sensing sensors. Also new instrumentation is used for easy and inexpensive measurements of stable isotopes. The collected data are integrated into a physically based and distributed hydrological model.

In the presentation a summary will be given of the results obtained so far and how the observatory has contributed to the development of a better understanding of catchment behavior and dynamics as well as the water cycle.
# The CRITEX program : a multidisciplinary equipment program for investigating the Critical Zone

J. Gaillardet<fnref n="1" />, L. Longuevergne<fnref n="2" />

The Critical Zone of the Earth is defined as the thin veneer that the surface lying between the rocks and the atmosphere. It comprises many compartments, solid, gas and liquid phases that interact together at different timescales. The term “critical” non only mean that this zone is fundamental for the regulation of the Planet, it also means that, in response to global environmental changes, this zone, which is the life’s habitat and the zone from which food is produced, will have to be understood precisely so that we can predict its evolution in the Anthropocene.

Predicting the response of the Critical Zone as a whole needs in integrated approach. Because the Critical Zone is studied by many scientific fields (geological sciences, soil sciences, ecology), any holistic approach will need them to work together on common research questions.

While the different parts of the Critical Zone have been monitored for years in different long-term observatories, by different institution and for different aims, the CRITEX program is an attempt to foster a more integrated observational approach by coupling for example geochemical and geophysical and hydrological observations on well chosen Critical Zone Observatories. The Critex is a shared and centralized instrumental facility for the long-term monitoring and exploration of the Critical Zone, complementing and over-performing the existing site-specific equipments. CRITEX is organized according to two main challenging scientific objectives and 8 work packages divided into 22 work tasks. The first Objective is to develop high frequency monitoring in catchments (at the interface with the atmosphere, in the soil and at the outlet). Much information on the processes operating in catchments can be gained from refined temporal monitoring. High temporal monitoring of river catchments is also a prerequisite for closing energy, water and carbon budgets in selected catchments. The second objective is to develop multi-disciplinary monitoring of “hot spots” and during “hot moments” of the Critical Zone in catchments. CRITEX scientific approach is to investigate the Critical Zone across a wide range of spatial scales, ranging from the parcel to the whole catchment and coupling a process-based approach to an integrated holistic investigation using geophysical and geochemical techniques.

With 21 laboratory partners, 5 national institutions of environmental research (INRA, CNRS, IRSTEA, IRD, BRGM) and more that 20 universities, CRITEX is a major national French initiative, scheduled for a period of 10 years, embodying an unprecedented effort on the monitoring of rivers and catchments to foster a new style of scientific approach and to improve academic, societal, political and business partnerships with both operational and international spheres.

<footnote n="1">¹IPGP-CNRS, Geochimie-Cosmochimie, Paris, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Univeristé de Rennes-CNRS, Géosciences Rennes, Rennes, France</footnote>
# Introducing Australia's Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network; linking disciplines for better environmental outcomes

N. Thurgate<fnref n="1" />, B. Sparrow<fnref n="1" />, A. Lowe<fnref n="1" />, S. Phinn<fnref n="2" />, T. Clancy<fnref n="2" />

A wealth of information about Australian ecosystems already exists, within university, industry, non-government organisations and government departments. The Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network provides the resources to connect researchers in these areas and enable data to be efficiently discovered and retrieved.

TERN is helping fill in the fundamental knowledge gaps of terrestrial ecosystem science by providing a resource that enables data sets to be stored and shared. Indeed, TERN supports and highlights the need for data publication, sharing and citation which are critical for the advancement of ecosystem science. TERN first and foremost builds on established infrastructure and data sets, and relies on these large scale contributions to develop new research infrastructure and collection systems, expanding observation and monitoring programs into unrepresented ecosystems. The TERN network not only facilitates collaboration between ecosystem disciplines but creates a network for sharing ideas.

By providing the means to share data sets and develop collaborations as part of our data sharing processes, TERN is the catalyst for a culture shift to more open and collaborative ecosystem science in Australia. Our goal is to see more scientists working together, rather than in isolation, and being rewarded for sharing data and knowledge. Together, they will build knowledge more effectively to address key terrestrial ecosystem problems.

<footnote n="1">¹Terrestrial ecosystem research network, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²TERN, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia</footnote>
# Groundwater heads control catchment hydrological and hydrochemical response

A. Musolff<fnref n="1" />, C. Schmidt<fnref n="1" />, M. Rode<fnref n="2" />, G. Lischeid<fnref n="3" />, S. M. Weise<fnref n="4" />, J. H. Fleckenstein<fnref n="1" />

Nutrient export from agricultural areas strongly affects downstream water quality and ecosystem health. There is a need to understand the temporal variability of nutrient concentrations, discharge and resulting loads at the catchment scale. A general way to face that challenge is a top down analysis of catchments integrated response in the surface water to conclude on dominant processes controlling water quantity and quality. However, deconvolution of the strongly integrated signal at the catchment outlet bears the risk of equifinal combination of possible controlling processes. We assume that hydrological and hydrochemical processes are not independent from each other. To that end, a joint data-based approach was followed. The study combines the analysis of discharge and nutrient concentration from an agricultural managed headwater catchment with the assessment of groundwater head time series. The study site is the 1.4 km<fnref n="2" /> sized Sauerbach catchment within the TERENO River Bode observatory. The Sauerbach catchment is characterized by a complex geological setup with Mesozoic sandstones and siltstones overlain by Tertiary and Quaternary sediments. Two aquifers are present within the catchment of which only the upper aquifer is discharging into the Sauerbach. Within the catchment 9 observation wells have been installed and equipped with automated dataloggers to measure groundwater heads at hourly intervals. The catchment outlet is equipped with a gauging station providing discharge at 10 min intervals. Sampling of water for quality analysis was conducted over a period of 1.5 years in the groundwater, spring water and tile drainages and over a period of 3 years in the surface water. The analysis aims at the dimensionality reduction of groundwater head time series by the use of principal component analysis. The resulting scores (temporal variability) and loadings (spatial differences) are used to determine their ability as predictors for catchment discharge and water quality. The principal component analysis was able to explain 96 % of the groundwater head variability by two components. The components represent two extremes in the groundwater level behavior of the catchment - a fast reaction and a slow and damped reaction to recharge forcing. The loadings of these components for the individual wells are a function of geological settings and depth to groundwater. In the upper aquifer feeding the Sauerbach discharge, a larger depth to groundwater results in higher damping of the recharge signal. The loadings were found to be correlated with the concentration of nitrate in the groundwater samples. Thus we assume that the passage of water through unsaturated zone is the dominant control of both groundwater level variability and nitrate turnover. The two principal components of groundwater levels are able to explain most of the variance in the catchment discharge (93 %) and large parts of the nitrate variance within the stream (84 %). Thus this analysis shows the tight connection of hydrodynamic and hydrochemistry in groundwater as well as surface water of headwater catchments. Here groundwater head variability where found to be the dominant control of seasonal discharge and nutrient export behavior.

<footnote n="1">¹UFZ - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Hydrogeology, Leipzig, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²UFZ - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Aquatic Ecosystem Analysis, Magdeburg,
Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Institute of Landscape Hydrology, Müncheberg,
Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴UFZ - Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Catchment Hydrology, Halle, Germany</footnote>
# Nitrogen Load Estimates in Central Germany using Hydrological Water Quality Modelling and High Resolution Monitoring

S. Jomaa<fnref n="1" />, M. Rode<fnref n="2" />, S. Sinha<fnref n="2" />, S. Jiang<fnref n="2" />

Hydrological water quality modeling is widely used for investigating runoff and nutrient transport processes as well as watershed management. For instance, a good estimate of nutrient load requires an accurate prediction of discharge and nutrient concentration. In addition, multi-regression modeling approach taking the effect of storm events on riverine nutrient dynamics into account can be used for load estimates. However, a good evaluation and understanding of the dynamical behaviour of surface water quality variables is mainly limited by the monitoring strategy and sampling frequencies. The aim of this study is to compare the riverine nitrogen load calculations using two different methods: Monitoring and modelling approaches. To this end, nitrogen load estimates using a semi-distributed hydrological water quality HYPE (Hydrological Predictions for the Environment) model and event response reconstruction approach were compared in central Germany.

In this study, the dynamics of riverine nitrogen and storms effects in two catchments with strongly deviating land use conditions in Central Germany were investigated through continuous high resolution measurements. In-stream 3 years of semi-continuous (15 min) measurements of nitrate and discharge were conducted at 3 gauging stations within the Selke catchment (463 km<fnref n="2" />), which represents a catchment with moderate to low nitrate concentrations. The data were generated by the German's Terrestrial Environmental Observatories (TERENO). Additionally, 3 years of continuous data from the nitrate rich Weida catchment (99.5 km<fnref n="2" />) were used. The Weida is characterized by high nitrogen leaching compared with the Selke catchment. Discharge-nitrate concentration data from the catchments show distinctive patterns, suggesting flushing and dilution responses. The nitrogen load estimates were improved by reconstructing the nitrogen concentration response to rainfall events using commonly available quantitative hydrological data. Preliminary results of this study will be presented and discussed.

<footnote n="1">¹Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Department of Bioenergy, Magdeburg, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ, Department of Aquatic Ecosystem Analysis and Management, Magdeburg, Germany</footnote>
# Kettle holes: Hot-spots of biodiversity, carbon dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions in an agricultural landscape

G. Lischeid<fnref n="1" />, K. Attermeyer<fnref n="2" />, P. Bodmer<fnref n="2" />, P. Capser<fnref n="3" />, S. Flury<fnref n="2" />, A. Freibauer<fnref n="4" />, A. Geßler<fnref n="5" />, H.-P. Grossart<fnref n="3" />, S. Hilt<fnref n="2" />, C. Hoffmann<fnref n="1" />, A. Jaconi<fnref n="1" />, T. Kalettka<fnref n="1" />, Z. Kayler<fnref n="1" />, G. Kazanjian<fnref n="2" />, A. Kleeberg<fnref n="6" />, C. Lisboa<fnref n="1" />, D. F. MGinnis<fnref n="2" />, K. Nitzsche<fnref n="1" />, M. Omari<fnref n="1" />, M. Pätzig<fnref n="1" />, K. Pirhofer-Walzl<fnref n="1" />, K. Premke<fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="1" />, F. Reverey<fnref n="3" />,<fnref n="1" />, M. Sommer<fnref n="1" />

The landscape in North East Europe, North Asia and North America is characterized by a great number of small ponds shaped by delayed melting of ice blocks of receding glaciers at the end of the last glaciation. These so-called kettle holes are depressional wetlands acting as hot-spots of biodiversity, carbon dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions in a landscape with predominant intense agricultural land use. They are a paramount example of the tight coupling between aquatic and terrestrial systems. Recent studies suggest that small ponds, in spite of the small fraction of the area they cover, might serve as a major carbon sink in agricultural landscapes.

Agricultural land use is the major driver of nutrient, contaminant, and carbon input into the kettle holes resulting in highly eutrophic systems. Drift from fertilizer or pesticide application, or surface runoff and erosion from adjacent arable fields can trigger the build-up of algae blooms in the pelagial, shifts between floating and submerged vegetation or can harm vegetation in the littoral zone of kettle holes. However, most effects are substantially delayed with respect to external triggers and depend on the boundary conditions. For example, many kettle holes undergo a wet-dry cycle, depending on the hydro-pedological boundary conditions, which in turn triggers enhanced mineralisation of organic carbon, shifts in dominant vegetation or oxidation of sulphides. Subsequent rewetting of the oxidized sediments then leads to mobilisation of nitrate and sulphate, and later, after re-establishment of anoxic conditions to mobilisation of phosphorus and elevated methane emissions. In addition, a complete cover of floating plants like duckweed can prevent algae growth and minimizes oxygen exchange with the atmosphere, which in turn affects phosphorus release from the sediment and carbon sequestration in the kettle holes. Consequently, kettle holes exhibit enormous geo-, bio-, physical and chemical process variability both in space and time.

To study the complex interplay of intertwined abiotic, biotic and anthropogenic processes, kettle holes are a focus of interdisciplinary research in the Quillow catchment, ca. 90 km north of Berlin. The catchment is part of the TERENO North East Germany region, is one of the LTER-D sites, and is the study area of the agricultural LandScape laboratories (AgroScapeLabs) initiative and of the joint LandScales project (Connecting processes and structures driving the landscape carbon dynamics over scales).

An interdisciplinary group of scientists produces extensive biogeochemical data by monitoring of selected kettle holes, ground- and stream water quality. The interplay between hydrological, geochemical and microbiological processes, carbon turn over in the kettle holes and the adjunct soil and vegetation carbon stocks, greenhouse gas emissions, and feedbacks of erosion are studied. Furthermore, within this project and combined with the AgroScapeLabs activities there are extended surveys of macrophyte vegetation as well as of hermatophagous arthropods, ticks, and mammal migration close to the kettle holes. We argue that such an integrated approach is urgently needed to reveal the complex interplay between terrestrial and aquatic systems, and between abiotic, biotic, and anthropogenic processes in this area.

<footnote n="1">¹Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, Müncheberg, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland, Neuglobsow, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Braunschweig, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Landeslabor Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin, Germany</footnote>
# A multi-model uncertainty assessment of phosphorus transport using high-frequency data from the River Eden catchment, Cumbria

M. Hollaway¹, P. Haygarth¹, C. Benskin¹, K. Beven¹, A. Collins², R. Evans³, P. Falloon⁴, K. Hiscock⁵, R. Kahana⁴, C. Macleod⁶, M. Ockenden¹, K. Ross¹, C. Wearing¹, P. Withers⁷, J. Zhou⁸, E. Team⁹

¹Lancaster University, Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster, United Kingdom

²Rothamsted Research North Wyke, Okehampton, United Kingdom

³Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, United Kingdom

⁴Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, United Kingdom

⁵University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom

⁶James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

⁷Bangor University, Bangor, United Kingdom

⁸University of Liverpool, Department of Engineering, Liverpool, United Kingdom

⁹Eden Demonstration Test Catchment, http://www.edendtc.org.uk/, United Kingdom

Complex process-based models are increasingly being utilized to simulate nutrient transport processes in river catchments as a tool to inform water quality management strategies, with a recent attention focusing on phosphorus. When used at various temporal and spatial scales there are varying degrees of uncertainty associated with model predictions arising from errors in model structure due to lack of knowledge of the behaviour of key model parameters and processes. Uncertainties also exist where multiple different parameter sets can provide equally sufficient agreement with observed data, a concept known as equifinality. One key limitation in the calibration of such process-based models is insufficient input data to support and understand the behaviour of the large number of parameters. To address this issue, this study makes use of new high-frequency phosphorus and discharge data from the River Eden Catchment in the United Kingdom to perform a multi-model uncertainty assessment using the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation framework (GLUE) framework. The GLUE methodology is employed to assess the ability of the models to reproduce the observed hydrology and phosphorus datasets. Identifying where the uncertainties are greatest will allow us to highlight areas where the models require further development.
# Changes in water storage and water quality in the largest freshwater lake (Poyang Lake) in China and effects of the Three Gorges Dam

Q. Zhang¹

¹ Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China

The unique and valuable functions of lakes and their flood mitigation roles are well recognized. Lake hydrological condition is fundamental to the maintenance of these functions. Climate variations and strong human activities may result in the alteration of lake water balances, causing significant changes in lake water storage, and subsequent water quality changes. A prominent example of hydrological modifications to lake functioning is the regime changes to Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China. The Lake is one of the few lakes that remain naturally connected to the Yangtze River. The lake surface expanses to 4000 km² for high water levels, and reduces to less than 1000 km² for low water levels, creating some 3000 km² vital wetland habitats for many birds. The Lake is also an important freshwater resource for local social-economical development. During the last decade, extreme low water levels were recorded in dry seasons, causing water supply crisis for 12.4 million inhabitants and irrigation problems for 3.9 million hectares of arable lands. Changes in lake hydrological regimes also affected wetland vegetations and water quality of the Lake. The onset of the low water level happened to be coincident with the initial operation of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) in 2003, located upstream in the Yangtze River. Endless debates are being raised as how significant the TGD may have affected the Lake. This talk presented research outcomes to clarify some of the issues. It was found that the Yangtze River has significant drainage effect on the Lake. Operation of the TGD reduced the discharges in September-October, and lowered the water level in the Lake for autumn. The concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus were also found to increase after the operation of the TGD, and this may be partly due to the reduced water volume in the Lake. Projections on changes of the Lake water level using comprehensive hydrological and hydrodynamic models show that the Lake may become even drier under future climate conditions, causing greater pressures on water resource and water quality management.
# Spatial patterns in hydrological modeling: Benchmarked by the human perception - Evaluating against real data - Diagnosing complex model defects.

J. Koch<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />, S. Stisen<fnref n="2" />, K. H. Jensen<fnref n="1" />

Recent advances in hydrological modeling towards fully distributed grid based model codes, increased availability of spatially distributed data (remote sensing and intensive field studies) and more computational power allow a shift towards a true spatial model evaluation. Traditionally models are evaluated against single spatially aggregated catchment scale observations, e.g. river discharge or hydraulic head data with the conviction that it features the correct simulation of catchment-inherent distributed processes. The need of this paradigm shift is demanded in literature; however no single spatial performance metric is identified yet that proofed suitable for comparing observed and simulated spatial patterns of hydrological variables, nor there exists an agreed procedure to do so. The goal of this study is to develop and test simple and flexible metrics that go beyond global statistics. These metrics, individual or collective are used to evaluate simulated land surface temperature (LST) patterns against observed data, by MIKE She, an integrated and fully distributed hydrological model and by the MODIS satellite respectively. This study promotes *FuzzyKappa*, a metric that combines elements of fuzzy set theory and kappa statistics: The typical confusion matrix of kappa statistics is extended by both, fuzziness of location and category to allow an advanced pattern comparison of two LST maps. The similarity space representing the fuzziness can be represented by a distance decay function, which requires a benchmark to be tuned. The human eye is well trained in pattern perception and can thus provide a reliable benchmark. Therefore, a web-based survey is set up to generate a similarity ranking of 12 synthetic perturbations of MODIS data following the perception of the probands (approx. 200). Simple global statistics like RMSE and mean error perform poorly in reproducing the similarity ranking from the survey. On the other hand a collective metric based on Pearson's correlation coefficient and *FuzzyKappa* could replicate the survey ranking satisfying. 38 LST maps with full coverage are available for a 6 year simulation period of the Skjern river, the HOBE hydrological observatory in western Jutland (DK). The spatial model performance is assessed following the optimal metric from the survey. Out of the 38 LST maps the top and bottom 10 in respect to simulation performance in LST patterns are selected to further diagnose possible model challenges and to reveal weaknesses and strengths of the model. It is identified that days showing a bad pattern match are significantly warmer than the ones with a good pattern match, causing a higher evapotranspiration yielding a general cooling of the land surface. This defect in the subsurface-surface-atmosphere transfer model was not detected in the multi-constrained calibration and validation, where traditional objectives functions were used, and was only revealed by a spatial model evaluation.

<footnote n="1">¹University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²GEUS, Copenhagen, Denmark</footnote>
# From site measurements to spatial modelling - multi-criteria model evaluation

P. Gottschalk¹, M. Roers¹, A. Lüttger¹, F. Wechsung¹

¹Potsdam Insitute for Climate Impace Research, Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, Potsdam, Germany

## Question

Hydrological models are traditionally evaluated at gauge stations for river runoff which is assumed to be the valid and global test for model performance. One model output is assumed to reflect the performance of all implemented processes and parameters. It neglects the complex interactions of landscape processes which are actually simulated by the model but not tested. The application of a spatial hydrological model however offers a vast potential of evaluation aspects which shall be presented here with the example of the eco-hydrological model SWIM.

## Method

We present current activities to evaluate SWIM at the lysimeter site Brandis, the eddy-co-variance site Gebesee and with spatial crop yields of Germany to constrain model performance additionally to river runoff. The lysimeter site is used to evaluate actuall evapotranspiration, total runoff below the soil profile and crop yields. The eddy-covariance site Gebesee offers data to study crop growth via net-ecosystem carbon exchange and actuall evapotranspiration. The performance of the vegetation module is tested via spatial crop yields at county level of Germany. Crop yields are an indirect measure of crop growth which is an important driver of the landscape water balance and therefore eventually determines river runoff as well.

## Results

First results at the lysimeter site show that simulated soil water dynamics are less sensitive to soil type than measured soil water dynamics. First results from the simulation of actuall evapotranspiration and carbon exchange at Gebesee show a satisfactorily model performance with however difficulties to capture initial vegetation growth in spring. The latter is a hint at problems capturing winter growth conditions and subsequent impacts on crop growth. This is also reflected in the performance of simulated crop yields for Germany where the model reflects crop yields of silage maize much better than of winter wheat.

## Conclusions

With the given approach we would like to highlight the advantages and importance of a multi-criteria evaluation of eco-hydrological models. This approach appreciates the complex chain of processes in eco-hydrological models which are otherwise only tested at the integrated level of river runoff.
# Regional water balance analysis with an atmosphere to groundwater coupled hydrometeorological model for the pre-alpine TERENO region

B. Fersch¹, D. Gochis², S. Wagner¹,³, H. Kunstmann¹,³

¹Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, IMK-IFU, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

²National Center of Atmospheric Research, RAL, Boulder, CO, United States

³University of Augsburg, Institute of Geography, Augsburg, Germany

Complex, physically-based dynamic models of the terrestrial hydrosphere enable the analysis of cross-compartment interactions and facilitate a holistic representation of regional hydrometeorological systems. Dynamic regional atmospheric and climate models rely normally on a very general representation of hydrological processes above and below the land-surface. The movement of water is often restricted to the vertical direction and thus omitting mechanisms of horizontal redistribution. Moreover, the widely applied free drainage assumption for the lower model boundary leads to a violation of the model's intrinsic water balance. For longer integration periods such a configuration can lead to inconsistent conditions for storage bodies and for water and energy exchange at the land-atmosphere interface.

The Weather Research and Forecasting modeling system (WRF) with its hydrological extension (WRF-Hydro) permits horizontal redistribution of moisture for the sub-surface, the surface and the atmosphere and contains a one way coupled bucket representation of the groundwater storage.

We present anenhancedgroundwater configurationforWRF-Hydro. Theextensionaddsnon-linear feedback between saturated and unsaturated zone and the land-surface while maintaining the closure of theintrinsicwater balance.

After a stand-alone observation driven calibration, the coupled model is applied for the Ammer river catchment in Southern Germany, covering an area of around 700 km². Fully coupled and uncoupled simulations are compared and evaluated with observations from the pre-alpine TERENO observatory. The possibilities and limitations of such fully coupled modeling approaches are discussed and further observational requirements and opportunities are emphasized.
# A Physically-Based Modelling Approach to Assess the Impact of Climate Change on Surface and Groundwater Resources within the Grand River Watershed, Ontario, Canada

E. Sudicky<fnref n="1" />, S. Frey<fnref n="2" />, H.- T. Hwang<fnref n="2" />, Y.- J. Park<fnref n="2" />

It is now generally accepted within the scientific community that the climate is changing, and that future climate change may have significant impact on water resources in both quantity and quality. Alterations of base flow to rivers due to changing subsurface flow patterns, fluctuations in soil moisture and in the depth of the groundwater table, water levels in lakes and wetlands, and altered groundwater recharge/discharge patterns are examples of possible consequences of future climate change. Quantification of such impacts as driven by plausible climate-change scenarios is essential for policy makers and watershed managers. In this study, our physically-based model, HydroGeoSphere (HGS), is employed to simulate 2D surface water flow on the land surface together with 3D variably-saturated subsurface flow covering the entire Grand River Watershed (GRW). A globally implicit scheme used to solve the nonlinear surface and subsurface flow and transport equations simultaneously. The GRW covers 7,000 square kilometers, providing one million people their drinking water and irrigating one of Canada's most productive agricultural areas. We have assembled all currently available land cover/land use, climatic, hydrologic, digital elevation and subsurface hydrostratigraphic/hydraulic head data based on several decades of field-based investigations in order to characterize the GRW. The impact of global warming on the water resources within the GRW, including extreme event projections, is explored after calibration against historical meteorological, hydrological and hydrogeological data. An ensemble of dynamically-downscaled high-resolution climate projections is used to drive HGS in an attempt to quantify the uncertainty in the future climate projections and its consequences on the surface and subsurface water resources with the GRW. Due to the richness of the GRW datasets, it is suggested that the GRW could serve as a candidate watershed to enable inter-comparisons between comprehensive physics-based and lumped hydrologic models.

<footnote n="1">¹University of Waterloo, Earth & Environmental Sciences, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Aquanty, Inc., Waterloo, Canada</footnote>
# Modelling the hydrological signatures of a complex landscape: The Quillow Catchment (TERENO North-East)

G. Lischeid<fnref n="1" />, R. Dannowski<fnref n="1" />, C. Lehr<fnref n="1" />, C. Merz<fnref n="1" />, J. Steidl<fnref n="1" />, M. Wegehenkel<fnref n="2" />

Studying hydrological processes in the northeastern lowlands of Germany faces substantial challenges. The deposits of the last glaciations resulted in an “immature” topography without a fully developed stream network. Consequently, many of the small streams are man-made. On agricultural waterlogged sensitive sites tile drainage can contribute to storm runoff. Besides, groundwater plays a dominant role for hydrological processes. The uppermost unconsolidated Pleistocene sediments of about 100 to 300 m thickness consist of a highly heterogeneous interbedding of permeable and impeding layers. The resulting number and thickness of aquifers and of leakages between them are rarely known in sufficient detail. Catchment boundaries derived from groundwater contour diagrams are not necessarily closely related to topography. In addition, groundwater flow direction and the associated catchment boundaries often are not stationary and depend on the hydrological conditions. Thus, due to generally fairly low groundwater recharge rates, even minor fluctuations of groundwater recharge can result in major changes of groundwater head, groundwater flow direction and transient desiccation of stream reaches which in turn affects the hydrological behaviour. This often includes transient desiccation of shallow lakes and wetlands that are very common in this landscape and subsequent reduction of evapotranspiration which then feeds back to the whole hydrological cycle. The hydrology of this region is considered highly sensitive to the predicted climate change. In fact, substantially decreasing groundwater and lake water levels have been observed during the last decades. In addition, the intensification of agricultural land use and changing water management after the reunification presumably cannot be neglected. Thus there is urgent need for models that can cope with the complexity of the landscape and the associated hydrological processes.

In light of the above assuming a homogeneous aquifer and fitting a lumped model to the observed hydrograph is not warranted. On the other hand even the most advanced geophysical prospection cannot provide the required detail for highly distributed catchment models. Instead a thorough analysis of the hydrological and hydrochemical signatures of the catchment can help considerably to assess the necessary degree of complexity of the model and to constrain the model structure. Examples will be presented from the Quillow catchment which is part of the TERENO North-East region.

The observed hydrological dynamics should to a certain degree reflect processes and even spatial patterns, e.g., of permeability, within the catchment. Consequently time series of soil water content, groundwater head and stream discharge from various sites in the Quillow catchment and in adjacent catchments were subjected a joint principal component analysis. In fact a confined aquifer could be identified, and the extent of the overlying non-permeable layer could be roughly assessed. In addition, the mean behaviour of the unsaturated zone with respect to transformation of the incoming precipitation signal could be assessed and could be used for parameterisation of hydrological models at a larger scale. Moreover, results from hydrographs for different catchments were used for a first quantitative assessment of the respective fractions of tile drainage.

Besides, hydrochemical signatures can provide valuable information about hydrological processes. The analysis of a large stream water and groundwater quality monitoring data set using the Isometric Feature Mapping approach was used to assess the contribution of deep groundwater to stream discharge accounting for spatial and temporal patterns. It could be shown that transient drying-up of the uppermost stream reaches resulted in a decoupling of stream discharge from shallow groundwater and increased the fraction of deep groundwater.

However, stream discharge comprises only about 15% of the output fluxes. The remaining 85% of the incoming rainfall is evaporated or transpired. Thus, spatial patterns of evapotranspiration based on remote sensing data are a paramount source of information for constraining and testing hydrological

<footnote n="1">¹ZALF, Institute of Landscape Hydrology, Müncheberg, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²ZALF, Institute of Landscape Systems Analysis, Müncheberg, Germany</footnote>
models. Satellite data have been used at larger scales. Small areas like the transition zone between riparian wetlands and adjacent arable fields will be surveyed using an unmanned aerial vehicle. Here special interest is on the atmospheric lateral moisture exchange between sites with substantially differing evapotranspiration that seems to play a major role under certain boundary conditions.
# Seasonal Soil Moisture Patterns Control Transit Time Distributions in a Forested Headwater Catchment

M. Stockinger¹, H. Bogena¹, A. Lücke¹, B. Diekkrüger², M. Weiler³, H. Vereecken¹

¹Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, IBG-3: Agrosphäre, Jülich, Germany

²Universität Bonn, Geographisches Institut, Bonn, Germany

³Universität Freiburg, Hydrologie, Freiburg, Germany

The Transit Time Distribution (TTD) of a catchment is frequently used for analyzing flow paths, storage characteristics and runoff sources. Despite previous studies, the connections between catchment characteristics and TTDs are still not fully understood. We present results from a two-year stable isotope tracer investigation in the forested Wüstebach headwater catchment (38.5 ha), including precipitation, stream and tributary locations. We used the gauged outlet to determine effective precipitation (*p*<sub>eff</sub>), subdivided for wet and dry catchment state, and assumed it to be spatially uniform. We then calculated TTDs of 14 ungauged stream and tributary locations where stable isotope tracer information was available and compared them to respective subcatchment areas and the proportion of riparian zone within the subcatchments. Our approach gave insight into the spatial heterogeneity of TTDs along the Wüstebach River. We found that hydrological hillslope-riparian zone disconnection was an important factor, as the catchment shifted between two distinct, time-variant hydrological responses that were governed by seasonal changes of overall catchment wetness. The difference in hydrological behavior of the riparian zone and hillslopes could explain the often encountered ‘old water phenomenon’, where considerable amounts of old water quickly appear as runoff. TTD results showed a negative correlation between riparian zone proportion and Mean Transit Time (MTT), corroborated by the dense network of soil water content measurements. No correlation between subcatchment size and MTT was found.
# Using Spatial Data Infrastructure principles and services to improve management and availability of heterogeneous data for research and decision making on climate change and adapted land use in West-Africa - the case of WASCAL in West-Africa

A. Rogmann¹

¹Center for Development Research, Ecology and Natural Resources Management, Bonn, Germany

WASCAL is a Climate Service Center in West Africa focusing on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use for this region. A main task is to become a clearing house for climate change related matters and prepare research data on the climate-socio-ecological systems in the region for clients and translate feedback from clients to research questions. The development of a functional data structure is for this center thus a life line. The infrastructure, which should be able to handle heterogeneous environmental, economical and sociological data, as well as time series data. The management system for sensor data is being developed at the Research Center Jülich, Germany, which provides bio-physical data to the West African research community. Coupled to this system is a catalogue application for archiving and publishing file-based data of any type, covering thus the data forms of different scientific disciplines. The system furthermore provides comprehensive metadata management tools for individual data providers. The developed WASCAL Data Infrastructure (WADI) builds on the concepts and standards used in Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). The technical implementation builds on an self-defined organizational framework allocating tasks and responsibilities in data management workflows, and a data policy regulating data provision and access by protecting intellectual property rights and data privacy. Once WADI is completed, the Climate Service Center WASCAL will act as a knowledge hub in the region with the aim to integrate data providing partner institutions of WASCAL, step by step, into a data and knowledge sharing network to the benefit of research and policy advice on climate change and adapted land use in West Africa.
# Bottom-up capacity building for observations and measurements providers in RITMARE

A. Oggioni<fnref n="1" />, A. Basoni<fnref n="2" />,<fnref n="1" />, M. Bastianini<fnref n="1" />, C. Fugazza<fnref n="2" />, T. Kliment<fnref n="2" />, S. Menegon<fnref n="1" />, M. Pepe<fnref n="2" />, P. Tagliolato<fnref n="2" />, P. Carrara<fnref n="2" />

In the creation of a decentralized infrastructure for marine data in the context of RITMARE, Flagship Project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca), a fundamental component is capacity building by data providers. This challenge has been tackled by providing the Starter Kit (SK), a comprehensive set of software components bundled as virtual appliance that exposes standard services for the environmental data.

The RITMARE Project aims at fostering data sharing among Italian data providers in the field of marine research. Our group, lead of subproject 7, is in charge of building the spatial data infrastructure that constitutes the underpinning technology of the project. The infrastructure is employed by the data providers (public research bodies and inter-university consortia) and also by a variety of other stakeholders (public administrations, private companies, and citizens). Major data providers are marine scientist belonging to different communities (e.g., oceanography, ecology, biogeochemistry, geophysics, etc.). As a consequence, they envisage a varied corpus of heterogeneous data, metadata, workflows and requirements. Moreover different degrees of maturity with regard to the solutions implemented for the provisioning of resources are present. In general, major effort is being devoted to capacity building on the observation providers-side, which is the facilitated by the SK.

SK has been developed to improve the capacity for sharing and discovery geospatial resources. SK lets manage observations, layers (e.g. shapefile, geotiff, etc.) and documents (e.g. pdf, doc, etc.) but is here described with focus on observations collected by the sensors. The objective of SK is to allow a new generation of researchers sharing their observations collected during the fieldworks within their and other communities in order to improve the overall knowledge.

<footnote n="1">¹CNR-ISMAR, Venizia, Italy</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²CNR - IREA, Milano, Italy</footnote>
A generic data framework for processing and assessing heterogeneous observation
data

A. Devaraju¹, R. Kunkel¹, J. Sorg¹, H. Bogena¹, H. Vereecken¹

¹Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH, Juelich, Germany

The rapid development of sensing technologies and observation networks had led to the creation of volumes of environmental observation data. Access to diverse web-enabled environmental sensors and their data is now possible using the standardized Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) framework. However, it is unclear how quality control descriptions of heterogeneous data can be systematically made available to user with the framework. Missing information on data processing and assessment can limit the use of the data. For example, data of good quality might be neglected, whereas data of low quality might be applied. Without quality control (aka. quality assessment) information, users may not be able to select data that would better suit their applications and make better interpretation of the data. There are several Sensor Web projects investigating different aspects of quality measures. Some express data uncertainties, e.g., EO2HEAVEN and UncertWeb. Others are usually application-specific and partially capture quality control information, e.g., SANY, NOAA's IOOS, and Q2O. Further, retrieval of observation data with respect to certain quality control aspects is not possible in the current SWE framework. Apart from the quality measures (e.g., accuracy, precision, tolerance, or confidence), an end-to-end aspect of the data quality assessment should also capture levels of observational series, the changes applied, and the methods involved must be specified. Representing the descriptions of operation and maintenance of sensors is also vital as these provide additional information about the causes for measurement variability.

Questions that call for clarification are: What are the end-to-end key aspects of quality control of
observation data? How can they be modeled? How can they be associated with the observation data
and other metadata? How can quality control information be made available along with the
observation data via the SWE framework? This paper presents a common data quality assessment
framework addressing these questions. The framework handles processing and assessment of
heterogeneous environmental observation data. Starting with the way data are imported into the data
infrastructure, custom workflows are developed. Data levels implying the underlying data processing,
stages of quality assessment and data accessibility are defined. A tiered flag scheme is adapted to
cater quality descriptors of different sensing applications. The observational data model and service
from the SWE are modified to allow retrieval of observation data with respect to certain quality
assessment aspects. The framework is evaluated with data from observatory infrastructure TERENO
(TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories) and data from external agencies hosted by the TERENO
data infrastructure.
# Data Management and Long Term Archiving of Remote Sensing and In-situ Data at DFD - Status and Trends

K.- D. Missling¹, E. Borg¹, M. Tegler¹, K. Molch¹

¹DLR, DFD National Ground Segment, Neustrelitz, Germany

Within the last few years the situation of satellite and airborne supported remote sensing has changed fundamentally. The reasons can be explained among others by the following aspects:

* technical and technological developments and factors, such as the increase of the number of earth observation missions (e.g. multiple satellite missions on different or on one orbit), new advanced sensor technologies (e.g. SAR- and hyperspectral sensors of high spatial resolution), new storage media and storage technologies, and new improved data processing (e.g. automated interpretation algorithms and processing chains),

* market-oriented aspects (e.g. private remote sensing missions, such as QuickBird or RapidEye).

In addition to this the development was politically forced by European Union (EU) and European Space Agency (ESA) having established the program "Global monitoring for environment and Security" (COPERNICUS; erstwhile called GMES), which serves the development of an operative European Earth observation satellite fleet to combine earth observation monitoring with airborne remote sensing supported by terrestrial, maritime in-situ-measuring networks and additional data sources in operative process chains as well as services.

Besides the continuous provisioning of user friendly and reliable earth observation services e.g. to climate protection, for ecological survey, humanitarian assistance or for the reply to security-relevant questions the COPERNICUS initiative is aimed at the establishment of a European market for innovative remote sensing based services.

TERrestrial ENVironmental Observatories (TERENO) - Initiative of the Helmholtz community, operates on a temporal and spatial scale that make i.) integration of remote sensing technologies and ii.) the combination of these technologies with in-situ-measurement technologies urgently needed.

Both aspects require an advanced management and archiving design including appropriate technology and technological infrastructure to ensure a reliable long-term archiving. In the lecture, the DFD will present its solution the Data and Information Management System (DIMS) including its experience in archiving large data-massive. For a data provision to solute scientific questions in distant future additional aspects will be considered like data curation and interoperability in a service oriented environment.
# A Data Management Workflow for Verification, Integration and Visualisation of Heterogeneous Environmental Data

K. Rink<fnref n="1" />, M. Abbrent<fnref n="2" />, S. Petruschke<fnref n="2" />, T. Schnicke<fnref n="2" />, O. Kolditz<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="3" />

We present a web-based framework for the management of heterogeneous environmental data. Datasets are partitioned based on their general structure (time series data, sampling data, etc.) and can be accessed and searched using a set of standardised keywords or search terms. A digital rights management scheme correlates individual data sets with user accounts in order to guarantee the protection of confidential data while still allowing an overview of the entire collection as well as access to open data for every user logged on to the web-portal. The database backend of our system is based on established standards and includes mandatory meta-data for each data set conforming to best-practice standards for geospatial data such as the INSPIRE directive and ISO 19115 ("Geographic Information - Metadata"). Apart from direct access via our web-portal, data may also be retrieved using a number of web services specified by the Open Geospatial Consortium, including the Web Map Service for spatial information or the Sensor Information Service for time series data, to allow access to data from any software or website implementing these services.

A wide range of additional software allows for the verification and integration of data sets. Visualization for time-series data is integrated directly into the framework and allows to assess the data of one or more sensors in order to detect sensor malfunction, artefacts or other potential problems. Basic functionality such as selecting ranges or zooming are integrated as well as the option to assign flags to indicate the quality of the data and mark invalid values. While basic, generally applicable filters such as thresholding are integrated directly into the framework, a more extensive analysis requires post-processing using established products such as *MatLab, R* or *Origin* with a subsequent re-upload of the modified data.

External software allows for the integration and visualization of heterogeneous spatial data. This includes commercial products such as *ArcGis* or the *GMS* as well as open-source frameworks such as the *OpenGeoSys Data Explorer* or *ParaView*. Incorporation of this software allows for interdisciplinary discussions on the data as well as correlation and error detection. It is also the basis for presentation of intermediate steps or project results to stakeholders or scientific audiences.

Our system currently includes more than 28 million data sets and approximately 170 million measurement values, including the observation and field data from the TERENO observatory "Harz/Central German Lowland", a modelling case study in the Middle East as part of the IWAS initiative and climate data gathered within the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF) project.

<footnote n="1">¹Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Environmental Informatics, Leipzig, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Scientific and Commercial Data Processing, Leipzig, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Technische Universität Dresden, Applied Environmental System Analysis, Dresden, Germany</footnote>
# Analyzing the Land Use /Cover Changes and Their Impacts on Ecosystem Services Using Vegetation Indices in Upper East Region of Ghana

G. Baysal¹

¹Center for Development Research (ZEF), Ecology and Natural Resources Management, Bonn, Germany

The capacity of different land use and land cover types to provide Ecosystem Services (ES) is highly differentiated, dependent on the spatial context and on temporal dynamics in the vegetation cover, so that the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) changes is difficult to assess and predict. The direct assessment based on field measurements would provide most detailed insight into both spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC changes and effects of management changes within land use. However, it is often not applicable due to high costs, or - in remote areas - due to difficulties of access and establishment of observation networks. Therefore, data from remote sensing are more promising in delivering proxies to assess the spatio-temporal dynamics of LULC and land management dependent ecosystem services provisioning variations.
In this presentation, we use satellite-derived vegetation indices (VIs) to calculate primary production (PP) as a proxy for some (provisioning) ES. Furthermore, primary production represents a measure of the solar energy captured by the system and is therefore recognized as a fundamental supporting service.

For the analyses, LULC maps derived from satellite data (MODIS, LANDSAT) will be used to identify LULC and detect changes. Subsequently, the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) will be used to calculate the Primary Production. Finally, the sensitivity of the method will be tested for food provision as a representative service, using changes in crop yields derived from statistical services.
# A combined observational network and hydrological modelling to address water environmental services in watershed scale

H. da Rocha¹, J. Mota da Silva¹, N. Neres¹, H. Freitas¹, T. Martin¹

¹University of Sao Paulo, Atmospheric Sciences, Sao Paulo, Brazil

The current brazillian Forest Code law has enforced the consolidation of Permanent Preservation Areas (PPA) along rivers banks, steep and high slope areas, although not much has been effectively accomplished in the last years. We deployed a wireless hydroclimatic geosensor networks with 20 nodes (with measurements of air temperature and humidity, soil moisture and watertable) and 2 streamflow and precipitation gauges, over a 12 km2 watershed in the brazillian Atlantic forest biome, located in Extrema city at Posses river basin, which supplies water to Sao Paulo megacity. The cover area in the watershed comprises about 75% of pastureland, 20% primary and secondary forests, and 5% croplands. The network provide targeted measurements to be incorporated into simulations with a hydrological model (SWAT model), and their nodes were evenly distributed along the several types of vegetation across the spatial domain. With the field and modelling data, we have increased knowledge on how the hydrology responded to land use change, for a range of climate scenarios, and thus affected the water balance and water environmental services such as flood control and water availabity during the seasonal dry season and especially long dry spells. Streamflow and rainfall was measured since 2010, and network data (climate, soil moisture and aquifer) started to be measured in April 2014, which have been currently interpreted and discussed. The SWAT model was firstly calibrated using evapotranspiration measured in flux towers over forest and pastureland areas, and observed streamflow in the watershed. Model simulations were used to described land scenarios with varying extension of riparian reforestation and afforestation of steep areas basinwide. The scenarios with increasing reforestation showed a reduced mean surface runoff (24%) and a modest increased baseflow (2%). Preliminary results showed a substantial reduction of maximum streamflows, between 13% and 28% at the mouth and the head of the watershed. The results have highlited a substantial reduction of maximum streamflow events and a small increase of low flow which helps to keep the water availability during dry season.
# Integrated sensing, monitoring and modeling of low velocity flow fields in a constructed wetland for improving phosphorus removal

N.- B. Chang¹, G. Mohiuddin¹, J. Crawford ¹

¹University of Central Florida, Civil, Environmental, and Construction Engineering Department,
Orlando, United States

Forecasting the low flow velocity field in a heterogeneous aquatic environment such as the Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs) located at the northeast of the Everglades is extremely important in understanding the operation of the STA in its capacity to remove nutrient and functionality to serve as an effective wetland treatment system. Direct measurements of velocities at every single part of the STA are not always feasible. Integrated sensing, monitoring, and modelling technique can be a state-of-the-art tool to forecast the spatial and temporal distributions of flow velocity regimes in such dynamic aquatic environments. In this presentation, based on a few monitoring stations, comparison between two computational intelligence models including Genetic Programming (GP) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models was made possible to forecast the flow velocity and direction within a vegetative wetland area. First the local sensor network was established using Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter (ADV). Utilizing the local sensor data along with the help of external driving forces parameters, trained models of both GP and ANN were developed and validated to carry out the forecasting process of low velocity fields over time. The key finding of this research is the application of data driven artificial intelligence models for forecasting the hydraulic properties of a wetland system based on sparse monitoring sensors is reliable to some extent to discover insights of hydraulic residence time and to improve the overall understanding of possible nutrient removal in this constructed wetland.
# Five years of transition - atmospheric C-exchange dynamics of a coastal fen after rewetting

G. Jurasinski<fnref n="1" />, F. Koebsch<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />, M. Koch<fnref n="1" />, S. Koch<fnref n="1" />, J. Hahn<fnref n="1" />, S. Glatzel<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="3" />

**Question:** In which direction and how fast changes the atmospheric C-exchange of a coastal fen after hydrological conditions switched from moderately rewetted to flooded? The rewetting of drained peatlands is widely regarded as an adequate measure for the mitigation of greenhouse emissions. Therefore, especially in NE Germany, many peatlands are being rewetted. Our knowledge about greenhouse gas exchange associated with rewetting is mainly based on short-term experiments or space-for-time substitutions. These approaches do not consider the transient character of ecosystem acclimatization to flooding by rewetting. Here, we present more than 5 years of data on GHG (CO₂ and CH₄) exchange in a coastal fen after rewetting by flooding.

**Methods:** On the "Rodewiese" a coastal fen within the NSG "Hütelmoor und Heiligensee" in the Northeast of Rostock, NE Germany, we have established a long term research observatory addressing the atmospheric C-exchange. The site is part of to the TERENO Northeast network. Since summer 2009 we determine CH₄ fluxes with closed chambers distributed widely across the study site and CO₂-exchange with eddy covariance. Further, we record data on vegetation, hydrology, biogeochemistry, and microbiology.

**Results:** Gross photosynthesis as well as ecosystem respiration of the growing season both strongly decreased after flooding. However, because both decreased with the same magnitude, net carbon dioxide exchange (NEE) was almost constant at around 12 t*ha⁻<fnref n="1" />*a⁻<fnref n="1" />. The latter holds for the following years as well. Furthermore, flooding increased methane release rates to extremely high levels of up to 4.3 t*ha⁻<fnref n="1" />*a⁻<fnref n="1" /> for sedge stands and 2.7 t*ha⁻<fnref n="1" />*a⁻<fnref n="1" /> on average, which amounts to 67.5 t*ha⁻<fnref n="1" />*a⁻<fnref n="1" /> in CO₂ equivalents. Thereafter, the averaged annual methane emissions decreased asymptotically and where at an average of 0.4 t*ha⁻<fnref n="1" />*a⁻<fnref n="1" /> (10 t*ha⁻<fnref n="1" />*a⁻<fnref n="1" /> in CO₂ equivalents) in 2013. Factoring in the NEE of the growing season suggests that the system may be slightly above neutral with respect to the greenhouse warming potential of its atmospheric C-exchange 5 years after flooding. Analyses of peat and water biochemistry showed that the system had been destabilized in the first year following flooding and repeated vegetation analysis combined with remote sensing reveal strong and directed change in vegetation patterns.

**Conclusions:** Our data suggest that, when focusing on greenhouse gas mitigation, flooding should be avoided if possible. However, the successional development in vegetation, peat and water chemistry and atmospheric C-exchange we see in the 5 years after flooding hint at an adaptation of ecosystem functioning to the flooded conditions associated with reaching desirable annual rates of C-exchange and vegetation development during an acceptable time frame.

<footnote n="1">¹University of Rostock, Landscape Ecology, Rostock, Austria</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Inorganic and Isotope Geochemistry, Potsdam, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³University of Vienna, Austria, Department of Geography and Regional Research, Vienna, Austria</footnote>
# Theory and practice of observing and manipulating grassland ecosystem services from the plot to catchment scale

C. Macleod¹

¹James Hutton Institute, Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Agriculturally dominated catchments provide a wide range of ecosystem services. There is a need to understand the trade-offs and the multiple benefits that multifunctional agricultural land delivers. For example, intensively managed grasslands provide food and fibre, but also affect hydrological fluxes of sediment and macro-nutrients. It is increasingly realised that systems based approaches that take account of scale, connectivity and indicators of key thresholds in the delivery of ecosystem services are required.

In this presentation I will cover the theory and practice of monitoring grassland ecosystem services based on research that spans plot to catchment scale studies of temperate grasslands. These include understanding how grass cultivars can influence plot scale runoff generation, to the use of large (1 ha) lysimeters and field scale surface water drainage to understand grassland ecosystem services. There is a need for common and shared observatories to serve as coordinated cross-scale place based scientific platforms that enable interdisciplinary integration between empirical data collection through observation and experimentation, and modelling in support of ecosystem services and related integrative framings of land and water resources under environmental change.
# Tracking land-use changes from heterogeneous spatial data as tool for biodiversity and greenhouse gas monitoring in the nature park Drömling (Germany)

J. Untenecker<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />, B. Tiemeyer<fnref n="1" />, A. Freibauer<fnref n="1" />, A. Laggner<fnref n="1" />, F. Braumann<fnref n="3" />, J. Luterbacher<fnref n="2" />

Peatlands are important ecosystems for strongly specialized and endangered species but they are also hotspots of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when drained and used for agriculture and forestry. In Germany, most peatland rewetting projects have focused on biodiversity, but have nonetheless co-benefits for GHG emission reduction. Detecting changes in land-use and land-use intensity at adequate resolutions as proxy for GHG emissions (indicator: nutrient status, drainage depth or groundwater table) and biodiversity (indicator: vegetation) is an important prerequisite for assessing, and potentially monetizing multiple ecosystem services regained by peatland restoration. However, frequently no consistent time series of land-use products are available.

We introduce a soft translation key to construct consistent times series of land-use at the nature park Drömling at a 0.01 ha resolution. Two different fine-grained spatial products were used to create a time series of 20 years. Furthermore, the land-use datasets were analyzed to test whether they are useful as proxies for groundwater table by using data of 148 groundwater dipwells partially operating since 1992. The reduction of CO₂-emissions by rewetting from 1992 to 2012 was estimated by using the recent IPCC Wetlands Supplement of 2013.

A major loss of cropland and gain of grassland can be detected, while the area of shrubs and forests has been increased since 1992, mainly related to groundwater table depth. In contrast, the shift from grassland to cropland and vice versa is not always related to groundwater table. The information "wet" in spatial products can be useful, as well as detailed information of the groundwater table, but for making reliable statements both types of information are essential. Peatland rewetting in the nature park Drömling reduced the CO₂ emissions by 456 t year⁻<fnref n="1" />, which is equivalent to 2.6% of CO₂ emissions of the peatland area.

It is impossible to distinguish between permanent and non-permanent land-use change based on the used diverse datasets. The groundwater table influences land-use and land-use intensity on organic soils in the nature park Drömling, so this can be used as proxy if available in good quality, but high uncertainties remain. Thus, detecting land-use change by fine-grained remotely sensed datasets could serve as a conservative method for monitoring biodiversity.

<footnote n="1">¹Thünen Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture, Braunschweig, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²Justus-Liebig-University, Geography, Giessen, Germany</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Naturparkverwaltung Drömling, Oebisfelde, Germany</footnote>
# Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Preferential Flow at the Catchment Scale

I. Wiekenkamp¹, J. A. Huisman¹, H. R. Bogena¹, H. Vereecken¹

¹Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG-3 Agrosphere, Jülich, Germany

There is abundant evidence that preferential flow is a common phenomenon, which stresses the importance of incorporating preferential flow processes at different hydrological scales. However, predicting the occurrence of preferential flow becomes troublesome when moving from the plot towards the catchment scale, as data coverage diminishes. A promising approach to identify the occurrence of temporal and spatial variability in preferential flow at the catchment scale is the use of soil moisture sensor response time. After determining the sequence of soil moisture response for different depths, the spatial occurrence of preferential flow and other flow regimes can be identified for single rainfall events. The aim of this study is to investigate the dominant controls on preferential flow at the catchment scale using data from the wireless soil moisture sensor network SoilNet installed at the TERENO test site Wüstebach. This data set consists of three-year long soil water content time series measured at three depths and more than a hundred locations. Separation and selection of rainfall event was based on a minimum period without rain and a minimum sum of precipitation. For all delineated precipitation events, the response time for all sensors was determined for each location. Subsequently, the order of the response times was used to assign one of the following classes for the particular location and event: (1) preferential non-sequential flow, (2) preferential flow based on flow velocity, (3) sequential flow, (4) no response, (5) no data. To understand the factors and processes that cause spatial variability in preferential flow, the results of this classification were related to site and event characteristics (e.g. precipitation characteristics, initial soil moisture content, soil type, bulk density, organic matter content).
# Estimation of the spatial distribution of soil hydraulic characteristics using apparent soil electrical conductivity as proxy data

M. Rezaei¹,², P. Seuntjens¹,²,³, I. Joris², W. Boënne², W. Cornelis¹

¹Gent university, soil management, Ghent, Belgium

²VITO (N.V), Unit Environmental Modeling, Flemish Institute for Technological. Research (VITO NV), 2400 Mol, Belgium, Belgium

³University of Antwerp, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, 2020 Antwerp, Belgium, Belgium

Precision irrigation management requires accurate information on spatial variation of field hydraulic properties and in-detail observations. Characterizing field scale soil hydraulic properties can be done by linking them to apparent electrical conductivity (ECa), which can be measured efficiently and inexpensively, so a spatially dense dataset for describing within-field spatial soil variability can be generated. Moreover, the soil ECa dataset can be used to guide sampling more effectively and efficiently. The objective of this study was to find a link between hydraulic properties and ECa and available ancillary information at our study site. We attempted to answer the following question: can theoretical and empirical relationships between field ECa data, hydraulic conductivity and soil water retention data be applicable to predict saturated/unsaturated hydraulic conductivity more accurately and effectively at the field scale.

## Methods

The study site (10.5 ha) was located in a sandy agricultural area at the border between Belgium and the Netherlands (51°19'05" N, 05°10'40" E). ECa measurements were conducted with a DUALEM-21S sensor (DUALEM, Milton, ON, Canada) in 2011 and an EM38 (Geonics Ltd, Ontario, Canada) in 2013 at the field site with depths of explorations (DOE) of 50 and 100 cm for perpendicular receivers. The selection of sampling locations for the determination of soil hydraulic properties was done by combining a design-based (using ESAP software to select a full sample design i.e. 20 locations) and model-based sampling strategy (Fuzzme software to classify the ECa field data set) and 8 additional samples (traditional sampling along a transect) were taken to account for a maximum variation in soil properties based on a geophysical survey with a DUALEM-21S. Duplicate undisturbed (100 cm³ Kopecky rings) and disturbed soil samples were taken at each of the 28 locations. Soil physical and hydraulic properties of samples were determined according to standard methods (Ks was determined using a constant head laboratory permeameter, the soil water retention curve, was determined using the sandbox method and the standard pressure plate apparatus. The bulk density was obtained by drying volumetric soil samples (100 cm³) at 105 °C. Soil texture was determined using the pipette method for clay and silt fractions and sieving method for sand particles) and the parameters of the van Genuchten and Mualem conductivity model (MVG model) were fitted to the observed laboratory measurements. In a next step, the use of DUALEM and EM38 data with MVG parameters and Archie's laws was investigated to derive the predictive models of hydraulic properties.

## Results

Results demonstrated the spatial variability and heterogeneity of ECa and soil hydraulic properties with Ks and α being the most variable parameters as compared to other MVG parameters. There are positive and significant correlations between EM38v₁₀₀, DUALEMp₅₀ and DUALEMp₁₀₀(r≥0.84). The greatest significant correlation of hydraulic properties and ECa occurred between Ks and ECa of DUALEM (r≥-0.84) while there is no correlation between α and all ECa values derived by different sensors. The correlations between log n and EM38 and DUALEM sensors at various depths were relatively strong (r≥0.43; p≤0.05).

A strong negative relationship between log Ks and ECa measured with DUALEM (r²≥0.70) and with EM38 (r²>0.46) sensors was derived with a regression equation. The predicted results were tested vs measured data and confirmed that the performance of DUALEMp₁₀₀-Ks model is relatively better than that of the same sensor with lower DOE and of the EM38 sensor (RMSE = 1.31 cmh⁻¹, R² = 0.55). It