Duration
14h Th, 40h Pr, 3h AUTR
Number of credits
| Master in environmental bioengineering (120 ECTS) | 6 crédits |
Lecturer
Coordinator
Language(s) of instruction
French language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
This course covers the carbon, water, energy and nitrogen cycles in the ecosystems. More precisely the following themes are addressed :
Theme 1 : Energy balance
Theme 2 : Atmospheric turbulent transport
Thème 3 : Carbone balance
Theme 4 : Water balance
Theme 5 : Nitrogen balance
Theme 6 : Methodology of flux measurement
Theme 7 : Use of stable isotopes of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen
The order of magnitude of the different fluxes and reservoirs in these cycles, the flux determinants and their measuring techniques are presented in the lectures and tutorials. This implies that several transversal themes are addressed and used: ecophysiology; soil physics, chemistry and biology; hydrology, micrometeorology;...
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
After completing the course the student is expected to be able to:
- identify major plant controls on energy, water and trace gas flux exchanges with the soil and the atmosphere
- understand how climate and ecosystem management impact these exchanges
- Understand the requirements, strengths and limitations of ecosystem/atmosphere and trace gas flux measurement methods at spatial scales from leaves to the whole canopy.
- Implement the most widely used of these flux measurement methods
- Examine critically peer-reviewed publications in the domain of plant/ecosystem/climate exchanges
- Better understand the terrestrial ecosystem roles in the climate system and, conversely, the impact of climate on these ecosystems, especially in terms of productivity and vulnerability.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
The students
- work on a data set including few fluxes and reservoirs mentionned above, with the aim to analyse the behavior of the cycles for one particular ecosystem
- set up some measurement devices to quantify some of the fluxes and reservoirs mentionned above (Eddy Covariance and soil chamber method, meteo measurements)
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
- Lectures 12h - Practical works 48h - Seminaries 12h
Recommended or required readings
Lecture notes Proposed scientific papers
Assessment methods and criteria
Analysis of a scientific article with oral presentation (1/3 of the grade)
Analysis of a dataset with oral presentation (2/3 of the grade)
Work placement(s)
Organizational remarks
Contacts
Prof. Bernard Longdoz (Bernard.Longdoz@uliege.be)
Prof. Bernard Heinesch (Bernard.heinesch@uliege.be)