Assessment of different components of the Carbon flux in forest and agricultural ecosystems using remote sensing data and field measurements.

The assessment of carbon cycle in the ecosystems is essential for studying climate change. The two main components of the carbon cycle are Gross Primary Production (GPP) and Soil Respiration (Rs). The first one represents the carbon uptake of ecosystems through photosynthesis and it is the largest flux of the global carbon balance. The second one is the most important source of CO₂ in most ecosystems. The high spatial and temporal variability of these fluxes can make forest and agricultural ecosystems behave as a sink or as a source of CO₂ over the years depending on the interaction of meteorological and ecological factors. Therefore, developing suitable methods and techniques for estimating GPP and Rs are crucial to obtain accurate estimations. We have assessed these two main components of the carbon cycle in agricultural and forest ecosystems by new remote sensing and field techniques.

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Cicuéndez, V., Rodríguez-Rastrero, M., Huesca, M., Uribe, C., Schmid, T., Inclán, R., Litago, J., Sánchez-Girón, V., Merino-de-Miguel, S., & Palacios-Orueta, A. (2015). Assessment of soil respiration patterns in an irrigated corn field based on spectral information acquired by field spectroscopy. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 212, 158-167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2015.06.020.

Cicuéndez, V., Rodríguez-Rastrero, M., Recuero, L., Huesca, M., Schmid, T., Inclán, R., Litago, J., Sánchez-Girón, V., & Palacios-Orueta, A. (2020). First Insights on Soil Respiration Prediction across the Growth Stages of Rainfed Barley Based on Simulated MODIS and Sentinel-2 Spectral Indices. Remote Sensing, 12(17), 2724. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12172724.