Long-Term Biogeochemical Changes in China's Anthropogenic Landscapes
Project Summary
Population growth, agricultural modernization,
and other developments over the past 50 years have transformed the ecology
of China's nearly 2 million km2 of densely populated agricultural
village landscapes with local, regional, and global environmental
consequences. This study is investigating these changes by comparing
the pre-industrial (circa 1940) and current (2002) state of village
ecosystems across five sites representative of China's densely populated
agricultural regions. Measurements of changes in landscape structure
and in the biogeochemistry of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus (CNP) within
sites are being integrated with regional and remotely sensed data to
estimate long-term biogeochemical changes across village landscapes in
China. Based on this work, the relative impacts of CNP sequestration
in soils versus vegetation will be measured, as will the importance of
changes in land use versus fertilizer and biomass/fuel combustion in driving
C and N emissions over the long term.
Supported by US National Science Foundation
Grant DEB 0075617
Any opinions, findings,
conclusions or recommendations are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.