What's it about?
Water plays a vital role in land based mitigation of climate change. Growth of natural vegetation and crops and soil organic matter decomposition are limited by water availability in many parts of the world, constraining the carbon sequestration potential of terrestrial ecosystems. Evaporative cooling by vegetation can reduce local climate warming more directly. From these perspectives we study the interaction between water management and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from organic soils in Dutch fen meadow landscapes. In other projects, we study the climate effects of land restoration efforts worldwide, both through the evaporation and GHG linkages. In this research theme we do observations of greenhouse gas emissions and data driven modelling.
Research sub-themes
GHG Emissions and Land-use Change
This theme focuses on how greenhouse gas exchange (emission, uptake of CO2, CH4 and N2O) of peat soil, wetland and forest ecosystems interacts with climate change and changes in land-use management. Recently, we worked primarily with direct Eddy covariance flux measurements in Dutch peat meadow and natural wetlands. We use both ground-based and airborne methods. We also study the impact of climate and CO2 on Amazonia forests.
Projects
- AMAZON-FACE - Impact of future elevated CO2 on the forests of Amazonia
- National research program on greenhouse gas emissions from peat meadows
- Greenhouse gas fluxes in wet nature
- Greenhouse gas fluxes from peat meadows in Fryslân using mobile eddy covariance measurements
- ERA-NET ReLive - Back to the Future: Re-integrating Land and Livestock for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation and Circularity
PhD Research
Publications
- Erkens, G., van Asselen, S., Hommes, S., Melman, R., van Meerten, H., van Essen, H., ... & Smolders, F. (2021). Nationaal Onderzoeksprogramma Broeikasgassen Veenweiden: Samenvatting eerste meetjaar (2019-2020) (No. 2021-58). Stichting Toegepast Onderzoek Waterbeheer (STOWA).
- Van den Berg, M., en Kruijt, B., Validatie effectiviteit van onderwaterdrainage op CO2 fluxen in Friesland met eddy covariance (2020), Rapportage aan Provincie Friesland.
- Kruijt, B., Nouta, R., Jacobs, C., van den Berg, M., Fritz, C., Klumpp, K., ... & Osborne, B. (2020, May). Towards operational quantification of GHG exchange in heterogeneous agricultural landscapes and experimental plots. In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (p. 6122).
Climate Smart Agriculture
Agriculture contributes significantly to global warming through large scale GHG. At the same time agriculture systems are vulnerable to climate change. Climate-smart agriculture aims to address the interlinked challenges of food security and climate change through an integrated approach, focusing on: (1) sustainable increase of agricultural production (2) adaptation of food security systems to climate change; and (3) reducing GHG from agriculture.
Projects
- RECSA - Climate Smart Agriculture for a Resilient Coastal Bangladesh
- SustainIndus - Targeting water and food security interactions in a climate change hotspot
- AgMIP - The Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project
PhD Research
- Farmer Friendly Climate Information Services for Climate Smart Rice Disease Management in Coastal Bangladesh
- Agricultural Green Development Pathways for food and water in China
Publications
-
Climate change impacts on rainfed maize yields in Zambia under conventional and optimized crop management
-
Letter : Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production
-
Uncertainty in simulating wheat yields under climate change : Letter
-
Similar estimates of temperature impacts on global wheat yield by three independent methods
-
The uncertainty of crop yield projections is reduced by improved temperature response functions