Land Use and Environmental Modelling

Environmental modelling is increasingly used in land management. To make decisions on sustainable land management, quantitative estimates of emissions (e.g., annual fluxes of nitrate and phosphorus) are needed to chose among alternative management and mitigation strategies. Such data on emissions usually comes from models. The course takes an ecosystem approach and use simple as well as more advanced models to quantify climate and environmental emissions under different land uses, land use changes, and land management strategies.

Main themes are:

• The element balance concept, including the biogeochemical cycles and the involved processes for different elements: deposition, fertilisation, weathering, plant uptake, litterfall, net mineralisation, leaching to surface and groundwater, and gaseous losses.
• Calculation of mass balances of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and major metal cations.
• Water balance and its components, and their quantification by modelling.
• Soil characteristics and variability, and the importance for element and water balance and modelling calculations, based on field investigations.
• Integrated models for transport and loss of water, matter, and gasses.

The applied element balance-calculation methods, empirical and dynamic models are comparable to approaches and software used in environmental and agricultural consultancy companies.

The most common types of terrestrial ecosystems are addressed, including intensively managed agriculture and semi-natural ecosystems, such as forests, at scales from fields to watersheds. The most relevant types of land use and management changes are also addressed, e.g., decreases in agricultural management intensity and afforestation.

The written assignments and oral student presentations evolve around three case studies:

• A complex landscape with groundwater abstraction and afforestation plans for quantification of element balances and carbon sequestration.
• A simplified agricultural area for detailed modelling of nitrogen and carbon fluxes.
• Wetlands and other natural and constructed lowland barriers with issues related mainly to phosphorus retention and release, with coupling to denitrification and carbon sequestration.

The work on the case studies is conducted in groups and a group assignment is submitted for each of these three cases.