Application-oriented carbon budget modeling of organic soils

Lead Institute AK Institute of Climate-Smart Agriculture

Carbon losses due to oxidation from organic soils are modeled and validated with existing measurements to enable model-based balancing.

How can GHG emissions from German organic soils be estimated and used for emission reporting and evaluation of mitigation measures?

Background and Objective

The project "Application-oriented carbon budget modeling of organic soils (ACMOSS)" aims to extend existing models for the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions from organic soils by the complex water balance of organic soils and to test their application on large scales.Synthesis work on measurement and modeling will provide the basis for science-based evaluation land-use strategies and mitigation measures as well as improve emission reporting.

Approach

In this project, existing emission models as well as soil hydrological models will be evaluated regarding their applicability on organic soils and their suitability for regionalization. Existing measurement data from previous projects will be used for this purpose.

Results

Our results show that the water balance is the most important parameter for estimating greenhouse gas emissions from organic soils. This applies not only to individual sites, but also on a large scale. The precise description of hydrological processes of organic soils can only be achieved with models designed for this purpose, which require more extensive parameterization than is the case with mineral soils. This is particularly relevant for processes during rewetting measures and their success assessment.

The necessary parameter scope is not implemented in current regionalization approaches. Therefore, future work should aim at the extensive integration of existing parameter databases from soil hydrological modelling into regionalisation approaches in order to improve emission reporting for organic soils.