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Modeling the water-soil-plant ecosystem using the 1D-Integrated Critical Zone (1D-ICZ) Model

Koukianaki Evangelia

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Summary

Ecosystems deliver essential services that can be impacted by climate, land use and above ground biodiversity changes. Assessment of such impacts can be achieved through the ecosystem modeling of interlinked above- and below-ground processes. The objective of this thesis was to illustrate that the one-dimensional Integrated Critical Zone (1D-ICZ) model is capable of simulating and quantifying ecosystem services in several ecosystems. The 1D-ICZ model is a mathematical model that links soil aggregate formation and soil structure development to nutrient dynamics, plant nutrition, water flow and mass transport. It consists of four sub-modules: HYDRUS-1D (hydrology model), CAST (soil formation model), PROSUM (plant model) and SAFE (weathering model), with the CAST (Coupled carbon, Aggregation, Structure) sub-module being the heart of the model. The model was used to assess the biomass production, carbon and nutrient sequestration, soil structure and geochemistry of two mature forested ecosystems: Zöbelboden in Austria and Hyytiälä in Finland and, an avocado plantation in Koiliaris, Greece. The model was initialized and calibrated using long term observations along the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum. The model simulated a 25-year (1996-2020) period record (for Zöbelboden and Hyytiälä) and an 8-year (2016-2023) period record (for Koiliaris) of the main soil ecosystem functions by accounting for the interactions between water flow, solute transport, soil structure, carbon and nutrient dynamics and plant biomass production. The 1D-ICZ model proved to be a useful tool to fully model the water-soil-plant ecosystem and better understand the limitations to plant growth and below ground carbon accumulation, processes that are highly relevant to climate mitigation. Regarding the quantification of soil functions, in Zöbelboden, the annual average biomass growth (GPP) is 15.6 tC/ha/yr, the soil C stock 82.6 tC/ha, the N stock 3.8 tN/ha and the soil CO2 flux 0.04 tC/ha/yr, in Hyytiälä, the annual average biomass growth (GPP) is 11.6 tC/ha/yr, the soil C stock 38.6 tC/ha, the N stock 1.3 tN/ha and the soil CO2 flux 0.03 tC/ha/yr and in Koiliaris, the annual average biomass growth (GPP) is 14.7 tC/ha/yr, the soil C stock 80.7 tC/ha, the N stock 6.2 tN/ha and the soil CO2 flux at 8.3 tC/ha/yr.

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