RUDN University soil scientist showed how waterlogging of soils due to climate change increases the greenhouse effect
The main cause of global climate change is the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide. It accumulates in the atmosphere and retains heat, the planet does not have time to cool down and turns into a “greenhouse” — a greenhouse effect occurs. Carbon dioxide is produced not only by people, even the soil “breathes” — carbon, which is contained in the earth as part of various compounds, comes out in the form of carbon dioxide and increases the temperature. Because of warming, glaciers are melting, permafrost is thawing — as a result, soil moisture increases. Until now, it was not known how increasing humidity would affect the amount of carbon dioxide that is released from the soil. To find out, the soil scientist from RUDN studied soil samples of the Tibetan highlands, where the temperature rises three times faster than the global average.
“Despite the fact that soil drainage accelerates the mineralization of carbon in the soil and the release of carbon dioxide, increasing humidity does not necessarily lead to the opposite effect — to slow down the mineralization and release of carbon dioxide. To find out this, we investigated how these processes take place in wetland and meadow soils with contrasting biochemical properties,” Yakov Kuzyakov, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Head of the Center for Mathematical Modeling and Design of Sustainable Ecosystems of the RUDN University.
Soil scientists took samples of meadow and swamp soil and determined which substances contain carbon-undecayed plant residues or decomposed biomass. Then the meadow soil was saturated with water up to 70% of the amount that it could hold as much as possible. Marsh soil, on the contrary, was drained, withstanding 95 days at 25 ℃. Then the soil scientists from RUDN University again measured the carbon content in the samples and calculated how much the release of carbon dioxide changed with a change in humidity.
It turned out that in both cases, carbon dioxide was released more intensively. The reason for this is considered by soil scientists to be the original composition of carbon in the samples. In swamp soil, carbon is mainly contained in the composition of plant residues that have not yet decomposed. The carbon of meadow soil is mainly in the already decomposed biomass, soil enzymes work more actively in it. As a result, in swamp soil, high humidity inhibits carbon mineralization and the release of carbon dioxide. In meadow soil, the opposite happens — saturation with water further activates mineralization and the release of carbon dioxide.
“We showed that the decomposition of soil carbon in water-filled soil depended on the initial fraction of plant and microbial residues. Our work speaks to the importance of the biochemical nature in regulating the decomposition of carbon. We have come to the conclusion that both drainage of wetlands and waterlogging of meadows increase carbon mineralization (measured as CO2 release),” Yakov Kuzyakov, Head of the Center for Mathematical Modeling and Design of Sustainable Ecosystems RUDN.
The findings prove that protecting meadow soils from waterlogging will help curb the release of carbon dioxide and slow warming. Otherwise, there is a chain reaction-an increase in the greenhouse effect will lead to even greater global warming, increase waterlogging of meadows, and so on.
The results are published in Soil Biology and Biochemistry.
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A Center for Green Diplomacy was created based on the RUDN Institute of Environmental Engineering. Among the goals is the integration of the results of scientific and practical activities into the development of international relations in the environmental sphere. The center's specialists will also accompany the corporate sector in solving various environmental problems.
RUDN summarized the results of the scientific competition "Project Start: work of the science club ". Students of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences have created a project for a managed queuing system using a neural network to redistribute resources between 5G segments. How to increase flexibility, make the network fast and inexpensive and reach more users — tell Gebrial Ibram Esam Zekri ("Fundamental Computer Science and Information Technology", Master's degree, II course) and Ksenia Leontieva ("Applied Mathematics and Computer Science", Master's degree, I course).