AGROFLUX contributes to the verification of greenhouse gas exchanges carried out by Belgian ecosystems. It aims at bringing innovative design-of-experiment paradigms and observability concepts to surface flux estimations. The widely-adopted estimation based on Eddy-Covariance measurements still suffers from some notable flaws that deteriorate its accuracy in specific scenarios such as night-time stable or day-time convective atmospheric conditions.
This clear bias leads to a probable serious underestimation of the net CO2 exchanges, which is actually comparable to the gains expected from modified agricultural practices.
This evidently hinders the environmental assessment of agricultural policies and the definition of new ones, making the present research relevant for the carbon management priority.
The inter-disciplinary character of AGROFLUX manifests itself as early as its premise: casting the surface flux estimation into a model inversion problem. The resulting framework integrates computational fluid dynamics, turbulence modelling, environmental measurements, optimization and optimal control, control and observability, all feeding Bayesian inference.
This carefully reasoned formulation is actually the result of a dialogue between environmental scientists, fluid dynamicists, applied mathematicians and computational scientists.
AGROFLUX will heavily rely on ICOS (“Integrated Carbon Observation System”) stations established in Wallonia, ICOS being the European consortium network for GHG fluxes measurements.
The AGROFLUX partners are:
Prof. Philippe Chatelain, coordinator
UCLouvain, iMMC
Prof. Bernard Heinesch
Université de Liège (ULiège) , Biosystems Dynamics and Exchanges (BioDynE) research axis
www.gembloux.ulg.ac.be/biodyne
Dr. Quentin Laffineur
Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI), Ozone - UV - Aerosol group
ozone.meteo.be
Prof. Johan Meyers
KULeuven, Mechanical Engineering Department
www.mech.kuleuven.be/en/tme/research/tfso