9 research outputs found
LTSER Koiliaris CZO, Greece, Discharge Data
No full textThis dataset contains hourly water discharge data from Koiliaris river.
Discharge was calculated from automatically recorded water level data at TUC-KRB-AGIORGIS Hydrological Water Quality Station located at the junction of Stylos Karst Springs and Keramianos
LTSER Koiliaris CZO, Greece, Geochemical Monthly Data, 2004-2021
No full textThis dataset contains geochemical data for surface water, springs and groundwater.
Grab sampling monthly surveys performed at Koiliaris Critical Zone Observatory from 2004 till 2021
An integrated socio-techno-ecological framework to address desertification in Crete
No full textScience has documented a long list of alternative solutions that relate to sustainable land use practices that can be adapted to reverse the adverse impact of climate change and desertification. In addition, there are tools and models that can be used to evaluate the trade-offs between the different alternatives and identify optimal solutions that restore soil ecosystem services. As part of the IRISCC project (https://www.iriscc.eu/), these tools and solutions will be used to develop integrated research and knowledge services that will drive effective climate action. The overall objective of this work is to develop an integrated socio-techno-ecological methodology to address soil degradation and desertification in the Messara and Asterousia regions of Crete by identifying key adaptation and mitigation actions and facilitating regional government agencies to develop local level Strategic Plans to mitigate desertification. This methodology has the potential to be the backbone of a service to local and regional authorities for the development of strategic planning that would be co-designed with stakeholders to address local challenges. Land degradation in the study area is primarily caused by unsustainable agricultural practices, animal grazing and anthropogenic pressures that have been extenuated by the impacts of climate change. The natural topography is characterized by steep slopes which in combination with extensive grazing create conditions prone to soil erosion (Jucker Riva et al. 2017). Land use and vegetation cover have had a severe effect on water run-off causing land degradation and soil erosion especially during olive and vineyard tillage period (Karamesouti et al. 2015). The consequences of over-grazing are high water run-off, sediment loss and high soil temperature (Kairis et al. 2015Table 1).The methodological approach implemented has three phases (Fig. 1). In the first phase, co-design engagement efforts are initiated with the regional government of Crete and a framework is developed addressing soil degradation and desertification in the Messara and Asterousia regions of Crete. In collaboration with the regional government, the objective of action is defined, and stakeholders are identified. The co-design engagement approach is established, and all relevant knowledge input is identified. In the second phase, a baseline narrative is created from the existing knowledge and data collected and a science proposition is developed. The objective of the science proposition is to develop a list of alternatives (Table 1) that can be used alone or in combination to alleviate the impacts of desertification. These solutions address all the aspects of the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem NEXUS aiming for security of resources while maintaining and enhancing ecosystem sustainability. These solutions will be presented to stakeholders in order to assess their viability, what roadblocks are preventing their implementation, which ones are most appropriate for the region and to assess if the community has the capacity to implement these solutions. Based on the science proposition, stakeholders are asked to set priorities which will be evaluated based on similarities and to select alternative solutions; again, evaluated based on similarities and whether there were conflicts in perceptions. Certain scenarios will be run, this will be done through multi-criteria analysis and ranking. The co-design strategy is modified and improved to the stakeholder needs and perceptions and the selection of alternatives/ solutions is designated. Accordingly, a roadmap for implementation is created, including measures in legislation and funding mechanisms. The third phase concerns scaling up the knowledge and includes two parts: the education and training phase and communication and dissemination phase. A communication strategy will be launched through social media and a webpage and training workshops.The integrated socio-techno-ecological framework that will be used in Crete will be widely applicable and developed as a research infrastructure service. The service will benefit, in addition to the Regional Government, the local water utility companies by reducing cost of production, the agronomists by promoting collaborations and increasing profit, the farmers by improving soil fertility and increasing production and quality of produce and the regional government by improving environmental management, mitigating desertification and encouraging social cohesion
Karst SWAT hydrological modeling at large and regional scale: the case study of the island of Crete
No full textKarst landscape covers approximately 20% of the earth’s surface and provides about 50% of the world’s drinking water. In Europe soluble carbonate rocks covers 35% of whole continent and are widespread in particular in Southern, therefore the karst processes are very significant components of the physical geography of the Mediterranean basins. The aim of this study was to apply SWAT model integrated with a karst-flow model in Crete Island (6,669 km2) characterized by karst-dominant geomorphology.The Crete SWAT model was developed using DEM of 25 m pixel size subdividing the Island in 352 sub-basins with an average area of 20 km2. The combined model (KSWAT) simulated the contribution of the extended karst areas to the discharge of 47 springs. KSWAT was calibrated and validated using a network of 22 monitoring stations and 47 springs respectively for the period 1980-2009 and 1973-2009. The combined model was able to estimate water balance of the whole Crete in different hydrological conditions supporting management decisions regarding public water supply. The KSWAT model was tested also in a large scale version on Crete SWAT model based on DEM 100 m pixel size subdividing the Island in 23 sub-basins with an average area of 127 km2 in order to assess the applicability of karst-model in the current setup of SWAT in macro regions at pan European scale. The results of this study will be presented and discussed together to provide a SWAT modelling protocol to adopt in karst regions.JRC.H.1 - Water Resource
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Understand Hydrologic and Geochemical Processes at Koiliaris Critical Zone Observatory
No full textKoiliaris CZO is a European Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) typical of the Mediterranean karstic geomorphology, which represents watersheds affected by humans over the centuries. This study aims to provide information that underpins the hydrologic and geochemical processes functioning at Koiliaris CZO. Linking geomorphologic and tectonic analysis improved the delineation of a karstic area which extends outside of the Koiliaris watershed and identified how structural elements influence the regional hydrology. The fluctuation in the river flow represents processes occurring in the karst and the periodic signal is related to Earth tide stressing of the karstic reservoirs. The conceptualization of a two-reservoir, well-mixed karstic system is confirmed by both the geomorphologic and tidal analysis. The hydrologic response is fast and it is manifested especially during extreme events where 70% of the precipitation becomes surface runoff, creating major flood events. The different sampling sites in the Koiliaris CZO were geochemically clustered and the quantification of the weathering fluxes showed that 25 mm/1000 years and 39 mm/1000 years of carbonate were removed by chemical weathering for the Keramianos ephemeral river and the springs, respectively. These studies illustrate the importance of critical zone science and transdisciplinary studies on water and soil management
The LTER-Greece Environmental Observatory Network: Design and Initial Achievements
No full textFive years after its establishment (2016), the LTER-Greece network outlines its vision, aims, objectives and its achievements through a series of case studies. The network consists of eight observatories, focusing on innovative research topics, aiming to be both cooperative and complementary, while currently being in the process of expanding. LTER-Greece acknowledges the complexity of ecosystems and the fact that effective management of natural resources may only be achieved by addressing every sector of a nexus system in order to understand inter-dependencies, thus accounting for solutions that promote resilience. Hence, LTER-Greece focuses on the holistic study of the water-environment-ecosystem-food-energy-society nexus, in order to face environmental and socio-ecological challenges at local and global scales, particularly climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, natural disasters and unsustainable water and land management. Framed around five research pillars, monitoring and research targets nine research hypotheses related to climate change, environmental management, socio-ecology and economics, biodiversity and environmental process dynamics. As environmental monitoring and related research and conservation in Greece face critical shortcomings, LTER-Greece envisages confronting these gaps and contributing with interdisciplinary solutions to the current and upcoming complex environmental challenges
Modeling soil functions of forested ecosystems
No full textForests deliver essential ecosystem services that can be impacted by climate, land use and above ground biodiversity changes. Assessment of such impacts can be achieved through ecosystem modeling of interlinked above-and below-ground processes. In this study, the one-dimensional Integrated Critical Zone (1D-ICZ) model was used to simulate the soil functions of two mature forested ecosystems: Zobelboden in Austria and Hyytiala in Finland. Both are long-term ecosystem research (LTER) sites with extensive monitoring data. The model was initialized and calibrated using long-term observations and simulated the gross primary production (GPP), the total soil C stock and the concentrations of several components of soil chemistry. The C and N content of Zobelboden soils (82.55 tC/ha and 3.76 tN/ha) are higher than Hyytiala (38.61 tC/ha and 1.33 tN/ha) reflecting higher particulate organic matter (POM) accumulation. Temperature and light were found to be the primary limiting factors of plant growth in both sites, and precipitation a limiting factor only at Hyytiala. Regarding the quantification of soil functions at Zobelboden, GPP was 15.6 tC/ha/yr, soil C stock 82.6 tC/ha, N stock 3.8 tN/ha and soil CO2 flux 0.04 tC/ha/yr while for Hyytiala, GPP was 11.6 tC/ha/yr, soil C stock 38.6 tC/ha, N stock 1.3 tN/ha and soil CO2 flux 0.03 tC/ha/yr. The model can be used to understand the limitations of plant growth and carbon sequestration, processes significant to climate mitigation.Peer reviewe
Using eLTER observational data to simulate forested ecosystem functions
No full textThe world today faces many environmental challenges related to climate change, biodiversity loss, water and soil pollution. These multiple stressors act simultaneously over a range of temporal and spatial scales, resulting in significant losses of ecosystem services that eventually affect societal well-being and humanity. While immediate impacts sometimes receive considerable attention, little is known about their long-term and systemic effects and cross-scale interactions. Closing these knowledge gaps requires an improved, transdisciplinary understanding of the multifaceted environmental system, in order to develop appropriate mitigation measures (Mirtl et al. 2018).Forested ecosystems cover 31% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and 4.06 billion ha total area (UN FAO, 2023). Forests are the richest habitats in terms of biodiversity and they provide essential ecosystem functions (biomass production, water supply, climate regulation, pollination, fire and climate change mitigation, recreation) (Brockerhoff et al. 2017, Chapin et al. 2011, Ding et al. 2021). Shifts in ecosystem functions due to changes in climate, land use and above ground biodiversity cause soil to degrade. The assessment of the impacts of climate change can be achieved through modeling of soil functions in the earth’s critical zone (Banwart et al. 2019) (Fig. 1). The sites belong to the temperate and boreal forests of Europe with long-term monitoring data (>25 years) that can be used to fully assess ecosystem services.The 1D-ICZ model links soil aggregate formation and soil structure development to nutrient dynamics, plant nutrition, water flow and mass transport. It simulates and quantifies four of the main ecosystem functions by accounting for interactions between water flow, solute transport, soil structure, carbon and nutrient dynamics and plant biomass production. It is comprised of four sub-modules (HYDRUS-1D, CAST, PROSUM and chemical weathering and bioturbation) linked together to simulate the interactions of biotic and abiotic processes above and below ground in order to simulate predominant soil functions as well as the dynamics of soil hydraulic conductivity and water holding capacity (Giannakis et al. 2017, Kotronakis et al. 2017).Complex biogeochemical models such as the 1D-ICZ require extensive time series and detailed biogeochemical data to calibrate and simulate the soil-plant-water-atmosphere interactions (Table 1). Such data are not widely available, though can be found in well-instrumented ecosystem monitoring sites such as the sites belonging to the LTER (Long-Term Ecosystem Research), eLTER (European Long-Term Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research (eLTER), 2023), FLUXNET (FLUXNET 2023) and ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS), 2023) networks and research infrastructures. In this study, the model was initialized and calibrated during a 25-year period (1996−2020) using long term observations derived from the eLTER Repositories and from FLUXNET (only for Hyytiälä). Soil samples were collected from 3 different locations in each site and underwent Water Stable Aggregate (WSA) fractionation analysis in order to simulate the soil dynamics.The 1D-ICZ model simulated two mature forested ecosystems, Zöbelboden (temperate mountain forest in Central Europe) and Hyytiälä (boreal forest in Northern Europe) capturing the biomass production, soil structure and geochemistry. Temperature and light were found to be the primary limiting factors of plant growth in both sites, and precipitation a limiting factor only at Hyytiälä. The soils of the two sites are quite different with Zöbelboden having higher silt-clay content (74%) while Hyytiälä’s soils are very sandy (69%). The difference in silt-clay content is reflected in the WSA distribution which in combination with below ground C content (which is mostly in the cPOM (coarse particulate organic matter) fraction) shows very strong aggregation processes which relate to soil fertility. Regarding the quantification of ecosystem functions; in Zöbelboden, the annual average gross primary production (GPP) is estimated at 15.6 tC/ha/yr, the C stock at 82.6 tC/ha and N stock at 3.8 tN/ha while in Hyytiälä, the annual average GPP estimated at 11.6 tC/ha/yr and, the C and N stocks at 38.6 tC/ha and 1.3 tN/ha respectively (Table 2)
Vision-Based Decision-Making Methodology for Riparian Forest Restoration and Flood Protection Using Nature-Based Solutions
No full textNature-based solutions (NBS) are actions that use natural processes in a resource efficient manner to solve societal challenges. The lack of supportive legislature, and financial, communication and social barriers complicate the process of NBS implementation. It is an urgent need to develop approaches to design and implement NBS that would act as drivers to overcome potential barriers and enhance the social acceptability of the project. The vision-based decision-making methodology and participatory process created in this study has been carried out in the Koiliaris Critical Zone Observatory in Crete to design erosion and flood protection NBS and restore the riparian forest. The methodology consists of four distinct steps as follows: i) develop a vision of the area, ii) conduct a baseline assessment study, iii) NBS design and co-design, and iv) procurement and implementation. The methodology overcame multiple barriers because of the effective stakeholder engagement and the vision “drove” the project and created the necessary consensus that is necessary to achieve the objective of converting privately owned prime agricultural land to riparian forest. It offers an exemplar of a functional ecosystem restoration project that protects the river in a sustainable way, improves its biodiversity and water quality and improves the quality of life and social cohesion
