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SFB/TRR 32: Patterns in Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Systems: monitoring, modelling and data assimilation
Collaborative Project
Coordinating institution:
Meteorological Institute
The soil, vegetation and the lower atmosphere are key compartments of the Earth, where almost all activities of mankind take place. This region is characterized by extremely complex patterns, structures and processes that act at different time and space scales. While the exchange of energy, water and carbon is continuous between the different compartments, the pertinent fluxes are strongly heterogeneous and variable in space and time. Therefore, the quantitative prediction of the systems’ behavior constitutes a major challenge to scientists and policymakers, especially in view of global climate change.
Traditionally, the scientific disciplines, such as geophysics, soil and plant science, hydrology and meteorology have focused with success on their respective compartments. The interaction of different compartments, however, poses many open questions which are the research topic of this initiative. We are interested in the specific role of patterns and structures of physical and chemical properties and fluxes in the behavior of the soil-plant-atmosphere system at various spatiotemporal scales. We hypothesize that the explicit consideration of patterns and structure will lead to a common methodology that will increase our understanding and predictive capabilities of the soil-vegetation-atmosphere system. Research groups in the field of soil and plant science, remote sensing, hydrology, meteorology and mathematics located at the Universities of Aachen, Bonn, and Cologne and the Research Centre Jülich study the soil-vegetation atmosphere system under this new paradigm.
Collaborative Projects
A: Pore scale
Leading institution:
Institute of Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry
Research projects
- SFB/TRR 32 Project A3 Phase 1: A3 Characterization of effective hydraulic properties of unsaturated soils at the cm to m scale using electrical spectroscopic and tomographic non-invasive methods
- SFB/TRR 32 Project A2 Phase 1: Characterization of flow and transport properties of unsaturated soils using non-invasive methods and numerical modelling at the µm to dm scale
- SFB/TRR 32 Project A1 Phase 1: Pore structure, moisture, and water transport in soil by NMR
B: Field scale
Leading institution:
Agrosphere Institute
Research projects
- SFB/TRR 32 Project B1 Phase 1: Characterizing spatio-temporal patterns of water and C-fluxes at field-scale
- SFB/TRR 32 Project B3 : Spatial and temporal patterns of soil carbon pools - a MIR-spectroscopic approach
- SFB/TRR 32 Project B4 : Upscaling of local C02, water and heat fluxes to the field scale from observed spatio-temporal patterns using an integrative 3-D mechanistic process model
C: Mirco catchment scale
Leading institution:
Hydrology Research Group
Research projects
- SFB/TRR 32 Project C3 : Analysis of temporal and spatial structures of soil moisture by integrating remote sensing and process based modelling
- SFB/TRR 32 Project C1 : Spatio-temporal variability of catchment properties and their effect on water, solute, and CO2 fluxes from the micro to the mesoscale
- SFB/TRR 32 Project C4 : Scale–consistent two-way coupling of land-surface and atmospheric models
D: regional scale
Leading institution:
Institute of Geophysics and Meteorology
Research projects
- SFB/TRR 32 Project D1 : Modelling of time-space patterns of energy and mass fluxes over heterogeneous land surfaces with special consideration of CO2 and H2O
- SFB/TRR 32 Project D2 : Experimental study of spatio-temporal structures in atmosphere-land surface energy, water and CO2 exchange
- SFB/TRR 32 Project D3 : CO2-and water flux estimation by four-dimensional variational assimilation of in situ and remote sensing data
Z: Database, Coordination, Administration
Leading institution:
Geographical Institute
