Authors: Gabriel de Oliveira – Dauphine Island Sea Lab
Title: Partnerships Welcome: Designing a Network of Eddy Covariance Flux Towers in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta
Abstract: Eddy covariance is of great use to several regulatory and commercial applications, related to environmental and water management, industrial monitoring, agricultural production, and other areas where directly measured energy, water vapor or gas exchanges, emissions and budgets are of interest. Major flux measurement networks exist to provide global synthesis, which allows interpretation of one particular site in the context of world-wide observations. Automated and semi-automated technical tools are now also available to expand the use of automated flux stations, individually and as a part of cross shared flux networks, into modelling and remote sensing with global coverage and local resolution. In this project, we aim to design a network of eddy covariance towers throughout the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in order to understand the responses of different terrestrial ecosystems on releasing/absorbing water to and from the atmosphere and emitting/absorbing carbon to and from the atmosphere. The idea is to set up towers over hardwood evergreen forests, wetlands, marshes and also agricultural areas in the surroundings. These towers, together with remote sensing (satellite) data and modeling we will be able to investigate, e.g., how different ecosystems in the Delta are behaving, both spatially and temporally, in terms of acting a sink or source of carbon.