Uncovering the links between agricultural trace gas emissions and crop productivity

One of the major scientific and societal challenges of our time is to secure the food supply for a growing population in a changing world. However, the productivity of crops is highly sensitivity to climate variations in temperature or rainfall and it is estimated that 30% globally (regionally up to 60%) of the observed variations in crop productivity can be explained by variations in climatic conditions.
Agriculture itself is also a significant contributor to the emission of climate-relevant greenhouse gases. Globally, agriculture is the second largest emission source behind the energy sector. Agriculture contributes about 10% to the total greenhouse gas emissions of the UK (>40% for methane and >70% for N2O). Plants also emit biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) such as methanol or isoprene which lead to aerosol formation and interact with atmospheric chemistry and thus affect climate and local air quality.
If we want to move forward towards resilient and sustainable agriculture, it is important to understand how climatic fluctuations and change will impact agricultural crop production, what controls agriculture emissions of climate gases and how well we can project agricultural productivity and the related emissions into the future.
In this project, we will use detailed observations of key parameters characterising the meteorological conditions, soil conditions, crop productivity and trace gas fluxes of a monitored agriculture field used for crop production to evaluate the fundamental interplay between productivity, trace gases fluxes and external (meteorological) drivers. This will then be used to test our current understanding of plant functioning as represented by state-of-the-art land surface models, which form a key element in climate and Earth System models used for forecasting our future climate and the implication of climate change on regional ecosystems and agriculture.
The goals of this project are detailed observations of trace gas fluxes of a site similar to extensive crop prodcution and establishing links between climatic variations, trace gase fluxes and productivity. The project takes advantage of a well established collaboration of the Dept. of Geography and G’s Fresh in East Anglia.