Open AccessNew Sensor Technology for Field‐Scale Quantification of Carbon Dioxide in Soil
Author(s) -
Lazik Detlef,
Vetterlein Doris,
Salas Simone Kilian,
Sood Pramit,
Apelt Bernd,
Vogel HansJörg
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
vadose zone journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.036
H-Index - 81
ISSN - 1539-1663
DOI - 10.2136/vzj2019.01.0007
Subject(s) - environmental science , soil science , soil water , soil respiration , soil gas , carbon dioxide , hordeum vulgare , tracer , mesocosm , water content , atmospheric sciences , environmental chemistry , chemistry , agronomy , geology , organic chemistry , physics , poaceae , geotechnical engineering , biology , nutrient , nuclear physics
Core Ideas This new technology is suitable for field‐scale quantification of CO 2 in soil. The measurement scale ranges from decimeters up to decameters. The concentrations from the soil water and air phases are averaged. Transient CO 2 production and transport reflect plant growth. Biological activity in soil causes fluxes of O 2 into and CO 2 out of the soil with significant global relevance. Hence, the dynamics of CO 2 concentrations in soil can be used as an indicator for biological activity. However, there is an enormous spatial and temporal variability in soil respiration, which has led to the notion of hotspots and hot moments. This variability is attributed to the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of both plant–soil–microbiome interactions and the local conditions governing gas transport. For the characterization of a given soil, the local heterogeneities should be replaced by some meaningful average. To this end, we introduce a line sensor based on tubular gas‐selective membranes that is applicable at the field scale for a wide range in water content. It provides the average CO 2 concentration of the ambient soil along its length. The new technique corrects for fluctuating external conditions (i.e., temperature and air pressure) and the impact of water vapor without any further calibration. The new line sensor was tested in a laboratory mesocosm experiment where CO 2 concentrations were monitored at two depths during the growth of barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.). The results could be consistently related to plant development, plant density, and changing conditions for gas diffusion toward the soil surface. The comparison with an independent CO 2 sensor confirmed that the new sensor is actually capable of determining meaningful average CO 2 concentrations in a natural soil for long time periods.