Features

  • Evergreen coniferous forest
  • 24 m tower, remote sensing, in situ sensors
  • Soil moisture, energy fluxes, turbulence
  • Greenhouse gases, precursor trace gases
  • Location of the infrastructure: Kootwijk, The Netherlands

Background

The site is a flux tower facility over 100 year-old Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest. In 1995, it was primarily developed to determine the long-term uptake and release of CO2 and evapotranspiration of the forest, using the eddy covariance method. Supporting observations are meteorological (radiation budget, rainfall, vertical profiles of wind, temperature, humidity and CO2, soil temperature and humidity), ecophysiological (leaf area, litter fall, sap flow) and forestry (stem diameter increment. International data quality assessment and control requirements are implemented.

Rationale for inclusion in the Ruisdael Observatory

The Loobos site represents a crucial contrast to the other Dutch land surface types: aerodynamically rough, forested, on well-drained, sandy soils and vulnerable to summer drought.

The existing measurements will be augmented with fluxes of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) as well as fluxes of ozone (O3). As drought is expected to be an important factor controlling ecosystem behaviour in a changing climate, air and soil moisture will be monitored by innovative methods involving fibre-optics. Together with the existing flux measurements this ensemble offers enhanced insight in the role of forests in the interaction of climate change, the hydrological cycle and air quality. The existing equipment will be upgraded to standards of an ICOS level-2 site.

Coordinator

Coordinator of the Loobos site is consortium partner Wageningen University & Research.

Contact-details: Michiel van der Molen

Click here for the link to the station and here you can find data.