Mesoscale interactions between biosphere and atmosphere in Amazonia
| Grant number: | 97/00446-4 |
| Support type: | Research Projects - Thematic Grants |
| Duration: | June 01, 1997 - November 30, 2000 |
| Field of knowledge: | Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Soil Science |
| Principal Investigator: | Carlos Clemente Cerri |
| Grantee: | Carlos Clemente Cerri |
| Home Institution: | Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil |
| Associated scholarship(s): | 99/03098-2 - Distribution and biogeochemistry of inorganic compounds associated with the conversion of forest into pasture in Rondônia, using multi-elemental analyses,
BP.PD 98/05557-1 - Appraisal of knowledge relative to the changes in land use in Amazonia and the consequences on the global carbon cycle, BE.PQ 98/07445-6 - Alteration in the cycle of nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus resulting from changes in land use in the Brazilian Amazon basin, BP.IC 97/13198-9 - Root system and its influence on the flux of gases in the forest-pasture succession in the Brazilian Amazon, BP.PD |
Abstract
We propose to measure changes in key soil processes and the fluxes of Co2, N2O and no associated with the conversion of tropical rainforest to pasture in Rondônia, a state in the southwest Amazon that has experienced rapid deforestation, primarily for cattle ranching, since the late 1970s. in sum, these measurements are intended to provide a comprehensive quantitative picture of the nature of surface soil element stocks, C and nutrient dynamics, and trace gas fluxes between soils and the atmosphere during the entire sequence of land-use change from the initial cutting and burning of native forest, through planting and establishment of pasture grass and ending with very old continuously-pasture land. All of our work is done in cooperation with Brazilian scientists at the Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura (CENA) through an extant official bi-lateral agreement between the marine biological laboratory and the University of São Paulo, CENA s parent institution. in this research we will : 1) make field measurements of P stocks and N2O and no fluxes along two sequences of forest and pastures established between 1989 and 1911 at a large ranch (Fazenda Nova Vida) that we have been studying for the past five years, 2) conduct field studies of C, N and P stocks and C and N cycling rates in soils, and fluxes of Co2, N2O and no between the soil and the atmosphere in a pasture that we created in 1994; 3) develop both response-function and process-based models to predict trace gas flux rates; 4) link these models with geographically-referenced information on rates of forest clearing for pasture to begin to predict how these changes affect trace gas flux rates for the entire Brazilian Amazon basin. (AU)