Collaboration Fund

Recent research (e.g. Collins et al. 2010, Sitch et al. 2007, Arneth et al. 2009) has shown the importance of ecosystems in determining trace gas exchange between the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere and the importance of this exchange for ecosystem services, GHG concentration and climate change. Much of this exchange occurs via the stomata (pores on the leaf surface); stomatal conductance is regulated by a number of environmental variables with low soil moisture often being the main limiting factor.

Climate models suggest future warming and shifting patterns of precipitation leading to drought in many regions. However, increases in future atmospheric CO2 concentration may lead to improved plant water use and thus act to mitigate future drought effects. Conversely, stomatal controlled uptake of atmospheric pollutants (Emberson et al. 2007) may limit net primary productivity. Disentangling these interactions to provide an accurate presentation of plant-soil water processes within the terrestrial biosphere will be a major priority for future climate change related research. 

Currently, models use rather simple soil-vegetation-atmosphere transport (SVAT) methods to estimate the influence of soil water stress on gas exchange. Many of these methods lack validation for the variety of plant functional types and climates that exist across the globe. The scientific communities that have developed these models for various applications would benefit from increased dialogue to help solve a common problem: how best to represent soil water influence on trace gas exchange for a wide variety of PFTs and environmental conditions across broad spatial scales.

To this end we propose to host an international workshop to bring together experts in the field of plant water relations, hydrology, SVAT and Dynamic Global Vegetation Modelling (DGVM) to identify common modelling approaches which will enhance our chances of winning major research funding awards.