Consortium > NERC

Natural Environment Research Council, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

Organization short name: NERC (CEH)
acronym:
web page: www.ceh.ac.uk

Description of the organization

The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is the UK's Centre of Excellence for research in the land and freshwater environmental sciences. The research is aimed at improving understanding both of the environment as we see it today and the natural processes that underlie the Earth's support systems - including climate & water resources. There is particular interest in the impacts of human activity on natural environments.

Expertise and experience of the organization

CEH's staff has specialist skills in a wide range of environmental disciplines, ranging from the smallest scale (the gene) to the largest scale (whole Earth systems). CEH undertakes high quality, internationally recognised research in land and freshwater environments. The research portfolio responds to the changing requirements of customers in government, academia, industry and commerce - nationally and internationally. CEH collaborates in Europe-wide scientific activities, through the science programmes of the European Union, and through membership of PEER (Partnership for European Environmental Research). CEH’s science is managed through six Science Programmes.

Selected reference projects

  • NitroEurope
  • CarboEurope
  • Cost 639
  • CLIMSOIL ( “Review of existing information on the interrelations between soil and climate change”. European Commission Service contract No 070307/2007/486157/SER/B1)
  • UK GHG LULUCF

Key scientific / technical personnel

Dr. Marcel van Oijen, Senior scientist (PhD 1991). Expert in process-based biogeochemical modelling of managed ecosystems and on the application of Bayesian approaches to model uncertainty quantification and uncertainty analysis. Leader of Ecosystems Modelling group at CEH-Edinburgh. Leader of activities 3.1 and 6.3 in project NitroEurope (Uncertainty quantification for plot scale models and Uncertainty quantification for regional models). Project manager for the United Kingdom’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory associated with LULUCF. Co-chair of Working Group Modelling and Monitoring in COST Action 639.
Dr. Mike Billett, Senior Scientist (PhD). Head of Section in CEH’s Biogeochemistry Programme. Expert in measurement and monitoring of carbon budgets of ecosystems with particular attention to peatlands. Expert in quantifying fluxes of dissolved organic and inorganic carbon.
Dr. Kerry Dinsmore, Biogeochemist with expertise in measurement and analysis of ecosystem carbon budgets.

Responsibilities in CARBO-Extreme

  • Long Term Carbon Measurements and Climate (WP3)
  • Model-data integration (WP5)
  • Model experiments and scenario analysis (WP6)

Selected recent relevant publications

Patenaude G, Milne R, Van Oijen M, Rowland C, Hill R, Integrating remote sensing datasets into ecological modelling: a Bayesian approach. International Journal of Remote Sensing 29(5), 1295 - 1315, 2008. link to publisher

Hyvönen R, [19 authors], Van Oijen M, Wallin G, Tansley review. The likely impact of elevated [CO2], nitrogen deposition, increased temperature, and management on carbon sequestration in temperate and boreal forest ecosystems: A literature review. New Phytologist 173(3), 463-480, 2007. link to publisher

Billett MF, et al., UK peatland streams release old carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and young dissolved organic carbon to rivers. Geophysical Research Letters 34 (L23401), 2007. link to publisher

Van Oijen M, Rougier J, Smith R, Bayesian calibration of process-based forest models: bridging the gap between models and data. Tree Physiology 25, 915-927, 2005. link to publisher

Van Oijen M, et al., Simple equations for dynamic models of the effects of CO2 and O3 on light-use efficiency and growth of crops. Ecological Modelling 179, 39-60, 2004. link to publisher