Life Sciences Commons^™

Ecosystem Services And Life Cycle Assessment Of Perennial And Annual Cropping Systems, M. Berti, A. Cecchin

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Corn cultivation has negative impacts to the environment, such as nitrate leaching, soil erosion, and nitrous oxide emissions. Perennial crops such as alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) reduce annual disturbance of soil, which affects many biogeochemical cycles that are key to provide resilience and stability to cropping systems. Four three-year crop sequences were evaluated. 1) Corn-soybean-corn (CSC); 2) alfalfa-alfalfa-alfalfa (AAA); 3) Corn-spring planted alfalfa-alfalfa (CAA); and 4) Corn-intercropped/alfalfa-alfalfa-alfalfa (CAIAA). Modeling of C and N cycles were conducted with the Denitrification-Decomposition (DNDC) model and global warming potential (GWP) was estimated using life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The soil organic carbon (SOC) balance …

Environmental And Agronomic Evaluation Of Struvite In Rice Production Systems, Diego Della Lunga

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Furrow-irrigation constitutes an alternative water regime that has been increasingly adopted in Arkansas. Among the management of nutrients in furrow-irrigated systems, phosphorus (P) represents a substantial challenge. The environmental sustainability of rice (Oryza sativa) production systems needs to be evaluated across different water regimes and fertilizer-P sources. Therefore, the objectives of the following studies were to: i) evaluate season-long carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) emissions and global warming potential (GWP) under different tillage treatments [i.e., conventional tillage (CT) and no-tillage (NT)] and at different site positions (i.e., up-, mid-, down-slope) along the predominant slope of a production-scale, furrow-irrigated rice …

Global Methane And Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Terrestrial Ecosystems Due To Multiple Environmental Changes, Hanqin Tian, Guangsheng Chen, Chaoqun (Crystal) Lu, Xiaofeng Xu, Wei Ren, Bowen Zhang, Kamaljit Banger, Bo Tao, Shufen Pan, Mingliang Liu, Chi Zhang, Lori Bruhwiler, Steven Wofsy

Chaoqun (Crystal) Lu

Greenhouse gas (GHG)-induced climate change is among the most pressing sustainability challenges facing humanity today, posing serious risks for ecosystem health. Methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are the two most important GHGs after carbon dioxide (CO2), but their regional and global budgets are not well known. In this study, we applied a process-based coupled biogeochemical model to concurrently estimate the magnitude and spatial and temporal patterns of CH4 and N2O fluxes as driven by multiple environmental changes, including climate variability, rising atmospheric CO2, increasing nitrogen deposition, tropospheric ozone pollution, land use change, and nitrogen fertilizer use. The estimated CH4 …

The Impact Of Decadal Land Cover Change On The Global Warming Potential Of Beringian Arctic Tundra, David Hwei-Len Lin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Arctic terrestrial ecosystems play an important role in the global carbon cycle. If arctic warming continues to rise as projected, large amounts of soil carbon stored in these ecosystems could be released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane and positively enhance greenhouse warming. Thus, improving understanding of the likely future state and fate of arctic soil carbon, and the carbon uptake potential of arctic terrestrial ecosystems are well recognized research priorities.

At the pan-arctic scale, decadal increases in NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), an index of vegetation productivity, have been observed from satellite imagery, indicating a general greening …