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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2013

  • Title: Simulation of the Carbon Cycle in the Harvard Forest Nelson Brook watershed using a Process-based Hydro-ecological Model
  • Primary Author: JiHyun Kim (Boston University)
  • Additional Authors: Crystal Schaaf (Boston University)
  • Abstract:

    Understanding fundamental physical processes in ecosystems is critical to building improved mathematical and conceptual models to represent those processes and use them to assess both current situations and various climate change scenarios. RHESSys (Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System) is a GIS-based hydro-ecological modeling system, incorporating process-based sub-models including hydrologic models (TOPMODEL and DHSVM), an ecological model (BIOME-BGC), and a meteorological model (MT-CLIM). RHESSys is particularly suited to the use of remotely sensed inputs (such as those produced with MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Landsat data) to generate temporal and spatial simulations of carbon, water, and nutrient fluxes over watershed regions.RHESSys has been applied to a number of research sites in the west-coast, mid-continent, and mid-atlantic regions, but it has not been extensively applied in New England. Harvard Forest in Massachusetts is an environmental research site (LTER, NEON, Ameriflux) that have been qualitatively and quantitatively monitored with eddy flux towers, meteorological and hydrological stations, and routine field measurements. Here we present the early RHESSys simulation results over the Harvard forest Nelson Brook watershed area as compared to the flux measurements by the HEM tower eddy-covariance system.

  • Research Category: Ecological Informatics and Modelling