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ullrika at the uncertainty show

Ullrika Sahlin

Senior lecturer

ullrika at the uncertainty show

Implications of accounting for management intensity on carbon and nitrogen balances of European grasslands

Author

  • Jan Blanke
  • Niklas Boke-Olén
  • Stefan Olin
  • Jinfeng Chang
  • Ullrika Sahlin
  • Mats Lindeskog
  • Veiko Lehsten

Summary, in English

European managed grasslands are amongst the most productive in the world. Besides temperature and the amount and timing of precipitation, grass production is also highly controlled by applications of nitrogen fertilizers and land management to sustain a high productivity. Since management characteristics of pastures vary greatly across Europe, land-use intensity and their projections are critical input variables in earth system modeling when examining and predicting the effects of increasingly intensified agricultural and livestock systems on the environment. In this study, we aim to improve the representation of pastures in the dynamic global vegetation model LPJ-GUESS. This is done by incorporating daily carbon allocation for grasses as a foundation to further implement daily land management routines and land-use intensity data into the model to discriminate between intensively and extensively used regions. We further compare our new simulations with leaf area index observations, reported regional grassland productivity, and simulations conducted with the vegetation model ORCHIDEE-GM. Additionally, we analyze the implications of including pasture fertilization and daily management compared to the standard version of LPJ-GUESS. Our results demonstrate that grassland productivity cannot be adequately captured without including land-use intensity data in form of nitrogen applications. Using this type of information improved spatial patterns of grassland productivity significantly compared to standard LPJ-GUESS. In general, simulations for net primary productivity, net ecosystem carbon balance and nitrogen leaching were considerably increased in the extended version. Finally, the adapted version of LPJ-GUESS, driven with projections of climate and land-use intensity, simulated an increase in potential grassland productivity until 2050 for several agro-climatic regions, most notably for the Mediterranean North, the Mediterranean South, the Atlantic Central and the Atlantic South.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
  • eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
  • Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)

Publishing year

2018-08-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

PLoS ONE

Volume

13

Issue

8

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)

Topic

  • Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use

Status

Published

Project

  • Global Savannah Phenology: Integrating Earth Observation, Ecosystem Modeling, and PhenoCams

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1932-6203