EXTREWAFOR

"Acquiring extremely high resolution maps of water use efficiency of Australian forests to assess the effects of drought, species composition and stand structure."

Coordinatore	UNIVERSITEIT GENT    more  Organization address address: SINT PIETERSNIEUWSTRAAT 25 city: GENT postcode: 9000 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Evelien Cognome: Vandevelde Email: send email Telefono: +32 9 264 32 73
Nazionalità Coordinatore	Belgium [BE]
Totale costo	264˙711 €
EC contributo	264˙711 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IOF
Funding Scheme	MC-IOF
Anno di inizio	2013
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2013-10-01   -   2016-09-30

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	UNIVERSITEIT GENT  Organization address address: SINT PIETERSNIEUWSTRAAT 25 city: GENT postcode: 9000 contact info Titolo: Ms. Nome: Evelien Cognome: Vandevelde Email: send email Telefono: +32 9 264 32 73	BE (GENT)	coordinator	264˙711.00

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Instantaneous ecosystem water use efficiency (WUE), the ratio of gross primary production (GPP) to evapotranspiration (ET), is an important integral trait of plant and ecosystem productivity and a key variable for modelling and understanding the impact of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. Unfortunately, the influence of climate change on ecosystem WUE is difficult to predict, because the underlying mechanisms that cause variation in ecosystem WUE are largely unknown. A major limitation so far in the research on ecosystem WUE is the current impossibility to measure WUE at sub-ecosystem (ie single tree or plant) level. The aim of this research proposal is to generate ET, GPP and WUE maps of extremely high resolution of three Australian forest biomes. The remote sensing imagery needed for this will be acquired by applying an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), equipped with thermal, visual and near infrared cameras. These maps will allow us to investigate how the ET, GPP and WUE of single plants and of entire ecosystems is affected by drought, and how species composition and vegetation structure affect this relation. Two innovative new algorithms to estimate ET and GPP will be developed. These algorithms benefit from two key advantages that UAV-remote sensing offers, namely the unprecedented spatial resolution and the possibility to construct highly precise 3D maps of the canopy, thanks to the large image overlap. Measurements will be performed in three representative Australian forests, which will be monitored regularly during an entire year. Spatial and temporal analyses will be performed to assess the influence of stand structure and species contribution on GPP, ET and WUE and how these factors evolve in time, particularly during drought periods.'