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FORFLUX

 

Biogeochemistry of Irish forests

DOWNLOAD 2009 REPORT AS PDF (pdf 188Kb) 
DOWNLOAD 2009 REPORT IN IRISH (pdf 187Kb)  

PROJECT TEAM
Dr Thomas Cummins, University College Dublin*
Prof. Ted Farrell, Emeritus, University College Dublin
Prof. Christoph Müller, University College Dublin
Beatriz Segura Zamora, University College Dublin
Prof. Julian Aherne, Trent University, Canada
James Johnson, Trent University, Canada
Alison Hyland, University College Dublin
Pat Neville, Coillte
Fiona Harrington, Coillte

* Email: thomas.cummins@ucd.ie

COMPLETION DATE: November 2010

BACKGROUND
The Irish landscape has undergone a unique transition from being virtually treeless to supporting a highly productive, intensively managed forestry sector over the last six decades. These plantations are distinctly different from the naturally regenerated and long-established managed forests of most of Europe and North America. Understanding ecosystem processes in plantation forests is a key to sustainable forest management. In recent decades, we have become more aware of the interaction of the forest with the atmosphere, the soil and surface waters. The need now is to understand the long-term implications of these interactions.

OBJECTIVES

  • Quantify major nutrient pools and fluxes at Irish forest monitoring plots.
  • Develop tools supporting sustainable forest management assessment.
  • Quantify concentrations and long-term trends of atmospheric ammonia and solutes in deposition, throughfall and soil water.
  • Model soil-water percolation, nutrient nitrogen and mineral weathering rates.

    PROGRESS
    Final field equipment was installed during January 2009, for monitoring of deposition chemistry, persistent organic pollutants and soil nutrient contents. Additional soil and vegetation samples were collected during June 2009. Ambient trace-gas monitoring stations has been ongoing for NH3, SO2 and NOx at the three intensive forest monitoring plots, and the sampler in use has been part of an international intercomparison. Innovative ion-exchange-resin samplers for throughfall and soil solution are being tested, and may lead to a low cost, long-term sampling approach that could facilitate deposition and soil-solution monitoring at remote sites to be visited only once per year, while greatly increasing the spatial resolution of deposition data. Database development is ongoing, and a data quality review has been initiated. Analysis of long-term trends in monitoring data is underway, using the non-parametric Mann-Kendall test. Indications are that significant long-term trends are present, notably in sulphur, which shows a decrease consistent with known reduced emissions from coal across Europe.
    During July 2009, the second meeting of the project advisory group was held. The PhD work at Trent University is ongoing. Research presentations were given at the BIOGEOMON, LSW and EFI conferences.

    ACTIVITIES PLANNED
  • Final Advisory Group Meeting, July 2010.
  • Write-up of PhD thesis.
  • Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Network Workshop, 4-5 March 2010.

    OUTPUTS
    Input to curriculum development and teaching: case study on forest biogeochemistry for new UCD course Soil Science Applications, utilising Level 2 site Ballinastoe. Manuscripts submitted to Soil Science and Biogeochemistry.

     

    2008 report

    PROJECT TEAM
    Dr Thomas Cummins, University College Dublin*
    Prof. Ted Farrell, University College Dublin
    Prof. Christoph Muller, University College Dublin
    Prof. Julian Aherne, Trent University
    James Johnson, Trent University
    Alison Hyland, University College Dublin
    Pat Neville, Coillte
    Fiona Harrington, Coillte

    * Email: thomas.cummins@ucd.ie

    COMPLETION DATE: November 2010

    BACKGROUND
    The Irish landscape has undergone a unique transition from being virtually treeless to supporting a highly productive, intensively managed forestry sector during the last six decades. These plantation forests are distinctly different from the naturally regenerated and long-established managed forests of most of Europe and North America. Understanding ecosystem processes in plantation forests is a key to sustainable forest management. In recent decades, we have become more aware of the interaction of the forest with the atmosphere, the soil and surface waters. The need now is to understand the long term implications of these interactions.

    OBJECTIVES

  • Quantify major nutrient pools and fluxes at Irish forest monitoring plots.
  • Develop tools supporting sustainable forest management assessment.
  • Quantify concentrations and long term trends of atmospheric ammonia and solutes in deposition, throughfall and soil water.
  • Model soil water percolation, nutrient nitrogen and mineral weathering rates.

    PROGRESS
    The principal activities during the reporting period have focused on the development of monitoring capacity, collection of field samples (soils) and the collation of historic data. Ambient trace-gas monitoring stations have been established for NH3, SO2 and NOx at the three intensive forest monitoring plots. Data loggers have been installed for soil water and temperature. Additional soil sampling has been carried out at ten Level 1 forest monitoring sites.
    A database of forest biogeochemistry is being developed and will be used in the time-series analysis of forest biogeochemistry. In addition, data have been collected for soil water percolation modelling and the determination of nutrient pools.
    The first meeting of the project advisory group was held in May. In conjunction with the project, an MSc project was carried out at UCD and a PhD research position was establishment at Trent University.

    ACTIVITIES PLANNED
  • Installation of field equipment (for monitoring of deposition chemistry, persistent organic pollutants and soil nutrient contents). Collection of additional soil and vegetation.
  • Ongoing ambient-trace-gas monitoring for NH3, SO2 and NO­.
  • Testing of forest biogeochemistry database and completion of time series analysis of forest biogeochemistry (preparation for publication).
  • Second meeting of the advisory group. Attendance and research presentation at the BIOGEOMON and LSW conferences.

    OUTPUTS
    Huber, C., Aherne, J., Weis, W., Cummins, T., Farrell, E.P. and Göttlein, A. Seepage water quality before and after clear cutting of Norway spruce stands at Ballyhooly (Ireland) and Höglwald (Germany) under high sea salt and nitrogen deposition. EUROSOIL, Vienna, Austria, 25¿29 August 2008.
    Hyland, Alison. Investigating the Predictive Capacity of Pedotransfer Functions for Estimating Bulk Density and Soil Organic Carbon of Irish Forest and Moorland Soils. MSc Thesis. Masters in Environmental Resource Management, UCD, 2008.
    Input to curriculum development and teaching: case study on forest biogeochemistry planned for new UCD course Soil Science Applications, utilising Level 2 site Ballinastoe and real-time datasets.
    Shared file server for Project group, hosted by UCD.