CARBOEUROFLUX Funded by European Commission DG Research - V th Framework programme

An investigation on Carbon and Energy exchanges of terrestrial ecosystems in Europe

General information
Sites
Homepages
Download the Workprogramme

General information

1. To investigate the magnitude of the carbon sources/sinks for a range of terrestrial ecosystems, in respect of species, age, climate, nitrogen loads and geographycal locations.
2. To understand the effect of inter and intra-annual climate variations on the magnitude of carbon exchanges of terrestrial ecosystems.
3. To investigate the role of soil, wood and leaves biomass respiration on the partition of the ecosystem carbon exchanges.
4. To validate ecosystem model of carbon sequestration across a range of climate, species and vegetation structure
5. To verify the stock change approach versus flux measurements as requested by the Kyoto protocol for carbon accounting in the committment period
6. To investigate the role of forest management on the carbon sequestration

The project is based on 30 study sites where continuous long term carbon, energy and water exchanges will be investigated together with ecological processes controlling the ecosystem biospheric exchanges.The study sites represent various terrestrial ecosystems of the European continent, encompassing various species, community structure, management practices and distribution with respect to the change of European climate conditions.The methodology for ecosystem exchanges of carbon and energy is based on the eddy covariance theory. The flux stations measure the net flux of carbon entering or leaving the ecosystem. This is the flux which, if summed annually, provides the estimate of Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE),and thus provides a direct measurement of the annual ecosystem carbon source/sink strenght. In order to reduce the uncertainty associated with site-to-site variation on flux measurement methods and calculations, the CARBOEUROFLUX programme is designed with the same hardware and software specifications at all sites. Furthermore data collected at the CARBOEUROFLUX sites will be quality controlled, corrected for frequency losses and sensor separation and, when needed, corrected for nighttime fluxes with the same procedures.The CARBOEUROFLUX sites are distributed along a North - South transect, going from about 41° to 65° North Latitude and from about 20° West to 25° East longitude.
The selected sites fall into four main climate classes: Mediterranean, Temperate - Atlantic, Temperate - Continental and Boreal. The major forest biomes are constituted by deciduous (beech, turkey oak) and evergreen (pinus, spruce, helm oak) forests. In these sites the inter-annaul variablity of carbon fluxes will be investigated. Other forest plantations, natural ecosystems and agricutural crops which are directly related to Article 3.3 and 3.4 of the Kyoto protocol, are included in the current site selection.

back to top

Homepages

 Go to the list of young researcher involved in CARBOEUROFLUX

 Go to the CarboEuroFlux homepage of the Technical University of Lisbon

 Go to the CarboEuroFlux homepage of the University of Bayreuth

Go to the CarboEuroFlux homepage of the Weizmann Institute of Science

 Go to the Nonantola CarboEuroFlux Site IT5 webpage

Workprogramm

download the CARBOEUROFLUX-workprogramm here