TerrA-P: testing remote monitoring of productivity during droughts

The year 2018 saw a widespread and intense drought across much of Europe. It was caused by a combination of high-pressure systems over the continent, which led to a lack of rainfall and unusually high temperatures. The drought had a significant impact of agriculture and livestock farming with further pressures from wildfires that were fuelled …

Global Ecohydrology

 In our November REALM meeting, we covered recent research under the theme of global ecohydrology. We were delighted to have two guest speakers, Dr Thanos Paschalis from the department of civil and environmental engineering, ICL and Dr Manon Sabot, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New South Wales, currently at the University of Bristol …

Disentangling the sensitivity of soil versus atmospheric dryness on photosynthesis

By Natalie Sanders and Zheng Fu In 2018, Europe experienced an extreme heatwave that led to record-breaking temperatures, wildfires and widespread drought. Water is essential for plant photosynthesis; dryness stress can reduce terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) and is often characterized by low soil water content (SWC) and high atmospheric water demand (known as the …

Stomata and soil water stress

By Dr Alienor Lavergne Stomata, the tiny pores on the surface of leaves, play a huge role not just in plant development but also in regulating gas exchanges between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere. They control both the amount of CO2 a plant takes up from the atmosphere and how much water they lose …

Have we been underestimating the impacts of drought on terrestrial primary production?

Dr Beni Stocker and Colin have teamed up again, alongside other long-standing collaborators on a new research paper published in Nature Geoscience, that demonstrates that current methods that are based on satellite data have been underestimating the impacts of drought on vegetation and the carbon cycle. Obtaining accurate estimates of photosynthesis and vegetation productivity across …

Research on tropical dry forests and their value for global ecosystem and land-surface modelling. By Rodolfo Nobrega

Tropical dry forests are characterized by environments that have high rainfall variability and a lack of soil-water availability. These forests are one of the most biodiverse semi-arid ecosystems, but they have been suffering from substantial anthropic changes, such as land-cover clearing and the desertification process. Little attention has been given to these dry forests due …