Soils under global change (SOGLO), BELSPO, IAP, 2012-2017
Human interventions affecting land use promotes soil erosion. The overall objective of the research consortium (involving four Belgian universities: UCL, KUL, UGent, UAntwerp) is the understanding and quantification of the feedbacks between the soil system and sediment, nutrient, water and carbon fluxes in response to anthropogenic forcings over timescales ranging from the decade to the millennium.
The contribution from our group is about the response of soil chemical weathering processes to erosion in two different contexts: (i) the response of soil chemical weathering processes to long-term disturbance of erosion rates has been tested in Southern Spain, in soil catchments under a tectonic exhumation gradient which promotes erosion; (ii) the response of soil chemical weathering processes to short-term disturbance of erosion rates has been tested in Southern Brazil, in soils exhibiting a land use gradient. This work has been led by Yolanda Ameijeiras-Mariño who obtained her PhD in June 2017 on “Impact of forest conversion to cropland on soil weathering: a geochemical study at the pedon, slope and catchment scales”.
This project is funded by the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO)