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Our Projects
Understanding and predicting the terrestrial carbon cycle is challenging. It involves understanding the core processes that drive it and measuring these processes across scales, from tiny soil particles to entire ecosystems. Much of the terrestrial carbon cycle activity occurs at the soil surface in the vadose zone, where conditions shift across spaces and seasons due to complex interactions among physical, chemical, and biological factors. Our goal is to highlight the primary force behind the carbon cycle—the water cycle—by exploring how it connects with carbon movement across the land at various scales, from local to global.
Phase distribution in natural porous media
Water plays a crucial role in driving biogeochemical cycles within terrestrial ecosystems, exerting influence on vital processes such as nutrient cycling, transport, fluxes, and microbial activity. Employing non-invasive techniques such as micro-CT scanning and microscopy, we aim to gain comprehensive insights into the spatial distribution of water across diverse soil types and environmental conditions. This enables us to establish universal scaling laws for air-water spatial distribution, which are subsequently utilized in biogeochemical modeling efforts.
Interaction between organic matter and microorganisms
Soil microorganisms play a pivotal role in the terrestrial carbon cycle, contributing significantly to the largest carbon dioxide flux to the atmosphere. Their capacity to utilize roots and litterfall as an energy source is instrumental in regulating carbon cycling on land. Employing high-resolution micro-scale observations, we delve into the intricate interactions between organic matter, encompassing roots and particulate organic carbon, at the pore scale. Through this research, our goal is to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms shaping the rhizosphere environment, particularly in response to various environmental conditions.
Terrestrial carbon cycle under changing environmental conditions
One of the biggest challenges of the 21st century is the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, which drive global warming. To understand the carbon cycle and predict its future changes, we use climate chambers in labs to control environmental conditions, along with advanced sensors for water and carbon. These tools help us see how different carbon flows, like photosynthesis and respiration, and carbon stores, such as organic matter and microorganisms, in terrestrial ecosystems respond to various climate conditions across different types of ecosystems.
Fluid flow and (bio-)reactive transport in porous media
Fluid flow and (bio)chemical transport and reactions are integral to numerous environmental and industrial applications, including nutrient transport, remediation of polluted sites, carbon dioxide storage, oil recovery, geothermal energy extraction, and filtration processes. The inherent complexity of natural porous media, coupled with the dynamic nature of environmental conditions, presents significant challenges in characterizing these phenomena. Our research is dedicated to study the interplay between flow dynamics, mixing/transport processes, and reaction kinetics occurring in fluid-fluid, fluid-solid, and biologically-induced reactions within porous and fractured media. We employ various scales of observation and modeling techniques to achieve this goal.
Machine learning approach to assess the terrestrial ecosystem response to climate change
We employ machine learning approaches to estimate the terrestrial carbon (for now) cycle on a global scale. Utilizing diverse sources of data, including flux tower data, remote sensing imagery, soil proporties, mineralogy, and microbial databases. Our objective is to establish a simple and cost-effective method to assess the terrestrial carbon cycle and to predict future alterations at a global scale.
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions...
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