Details of Award
NERC Reference : NER/A/S/2003/00403
Carbon fluxes in grassland soils: the control and predictive value of soil respiration.
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor J Farrar, Bangor University, Inst of Environmental Science
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor DL Jones, Bangor University, Sch of Natural Sciences
- Grant held at:
- Bangor University, Inst of Environmental Science
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Natural Resource Management
- Global Change
- Science Topics:
- Environmental Physiology
- Land - Atmosphere Interactions
- Soil science
- Climate & Climate Change
- Abstract:
- Climate change is perhaps the greatest environmental challenge we face. We will need to both minimise the changes, and adapt to the changes which are inevitable. This research looks at one way to minimise the changes. If carbon can be locked up in vegetation and soils - and soils are a far more important sink for C even than large trees - then its concentration in the atmosphere will be reduced. Unfortunately it is extremely difficult to decide whether the soil C stores in a given region are increasing or decreasing. Soil carbon contents are very variable, and large compared with changes that can have a significant effect on the atmosphere. Therefore we must find other ways of knowing about the locking up of C in soils, and we wish to explore one of those here. Carbon is lost from soils and re-enters the atmosphere as carbon dioxide respired by roots and soil organisms, especially bacteria and fungi. Because it comes from a number of different sources, it is a complex phenomenon which we don't understand properly. By studying one soil type plus its vegetation in detail, we will start to understand just where the carbon is coming from and what controls how fast it is lost. If we are successful, it should lead to improvements in the types of model used to inform policy, and to pave the way for a real understanding of perhaps the hardest problem of soil carbon. This is: soils contain a great deal of organic carbon which is resistant to attack by microbes, and as a result much is very old - commonly over a thousand years in many UK soils. Some people believe that as temperatures rise with global warming this will be degraded faster, leading to an increased loss to the atmosphere and a faster rate of global warming. Although this research will only touch on this problem, it will clear the way to tackling it properly by providing a fuller understanding of related processes in the soil which currently make the 'old carbon' problem so difficult. It will also clarify some of the technical issues surrounding carbon trading.
- NERC Reference:
- NER/A/S/2003/00403
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grants Pre FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Standard Grant
This grant award has a total value of £196,472
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - T&S | Total - Other Costs | Total - Equipment | Total - Indirect Costs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £95,230 | £3,691 | £36,555 | £17,190 | £43,807 |
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