ECI Annual Review 2006/2007 - Environmental Change Institute ...

Pan-Amazonia Project: for the
Advancement of Networked Science
in Amazonia
Pan-Amazonia is an interdisciplinary
research project coordinated by
the ECI and supported by the European
Commission under the FP6
programme. The project encompasses
three integrated scientific
networks designed to meld together
currently disparate research efforts
across the Amazon Basin in terms
of global change and tropical forest
ecosystem function. Pan-Amazonia
involves over 70 researchers from
10 Latin American and 9 European
countries linked together with the
overall aim of advancing our longterm
understanding of Amazonian
forest structure and function in the
face of global change. The project
is also training 11 South American
young researchers in state-of-the-art
scientific techniques.
RAINFOR: Amazon Forest Inventory
Network
RAINFOR is an international network
that has been established to
monitor the biomass and dynamics
of Amazonian forests. Support has
come from the European Commission,
the Max-Planck Institute
for Biogeochemistry (Germany),
the National Geographic Society
(US), the UK Natural Environment
Research Council (NERC) and
the Royal Society. The project was
founded by scientists at the ECI
and School of Geography in Leeds,
and involves most of the Amazonian
countries. In recent years RAINFOR
has contributed major advances in
our understanding of tropical rainforests,
resulting in over a dozen
publications in major journals.
LBA Project: Large Scale Biosphere-
Atmosphere Programme in Amazonia
LBA is an international research
programme led by Brazil, and considered
the largest project of international
scientific cooperation ever
created in the environmental area.
LBA seeks to create the knowledge
base and network for understanding
how Amazonia functions as a regional
entity, including the climatological,
ecological, biochemical, and
hydrological interactions. ECI has
a number of projects within LBA,
with a particular focus on long-term
measurements at a rainforest site at
Caxiuana, in the eastern Brazilian
Amazon.
Real Time Deforestation Detection
Project
The DETER ‘Near Real Time Deforestation
Detection System’, developed
by the Brazilian space agency,
INPE, uses remote sensing techniques
to detect land cover changes
within the Brazilian Amazon area.
The research is carried out using
MODIS remote sensors with high
temporal observation frequency on
board NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.
At Oxford we are exploring the
expansion of the DETER approach
to the wider Amazon region, and to
the African and Asian tropics.
QUERCC: Quantifying the Ecosystem
Role in the Carbon Cycle
QUERCC is a NERC funded consortium
that addresses land surface
processes over timescales from days
to centuries, with particular emphasis
on the carbon cycle. Some processes
are already well represented
and validated in Dynamic Global
Vegetation Models (DGVMs), while
others that are known to impact on
the carbon cycle are not. Independent
carbon and vegetation data sets
are being compared against DGVMs
to assess their current state, and further
key modules will be developed
for nutrient cycling (which exerts
a major feedback on carbon exchange)
and for a greater resolution
of plant processes. A global map
of plant functional types that exert
significant impacts on the carbon
cycle will also be developed. ECI is
focusing on plant nitrogen modeling
(fixation, uptake, allocation) within
the DGVM.
TROBIT: Tropical Biomes in Transition
TROBIT is a NERC-funded consortium
project looking at what drives
changes in vegetation structure
across wet-dry transitions in the
tropics. Its focus is on fieldwork in
Africa, Australia and South America.
ECI’s role within this consortium
is to compile climatic data for these
regions, and to use remote sensing
techniques to look at vegetation
structure and phenology.
Climate change and carbon dynamics
at Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire
Wytham Woods is an ancient
broadleaved woodland just outside
of Oxford. Since 2004 we have been
studying the carbon dynamics of a
one hectare patch of this woodland
(in collaboration with the Centre for
Ecology and Hydrology), with a particular
focus on understanding how
seasonal variations in temperature,
water supply and light affect ecosystem
dynamics. Over the 21st Century
southern England is projected
to experience more frequent summer
droughts, and our long-term
goal is to understand how climate
change will affect British woodlands.
In 2007 the measurements will be
expanded to include the transfer of
carbon dioxide and water above the
forest canopy.
Key Publications
Malhi Y, Wood D, Baker TR, et al.
(2006) The regional variation of
aboveground live biomass in oldgrowth
Amazonian forests. Global
Change Biology 12 (7): 1107-1138.
Barbier N, Couteron P, Lejoly J, et
al. (2006) Self-organized vegetation
patterning as a fingerprint of
climate and human impact on
semi-arid ecosystems. Journal of
Ecology 94 (3): 537-547.
Roman-Cuesta RM, Martinez-Vilalta
J (2006) Effectiveness of protected
areas in mitigating fire within their
boundaries: Case study of Chiapas,
Mexico. Conservation Biology 20
(4): 1074-1086.
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