Development and deployment of a field-portable soil O2 and CO2 gas analyzer and sampler.
Abstract
Here we present novel method development and instruction in the construction and use
of Field Portable Gas Analyzers study of belowground aerobic respiration dynamics
of deep soil systems. Our Field-Portable Gas Analysis (FPGA) platform has been developed
at the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory (CCZO) for the measurement and monitoring
of soil O2 and CO2 in a variety of ecosystems around the world. The FPGA platform
presented here is cost-effective, lightweight, compact, and reliable for monitoring
dynamic soil gasses in-situ in the field. The FPGA platform integrates off-the-shelf
components for non-dispersive infrared (NDIR) CO2 measurement and electro-chemical
O2 measurement via flow-through soil gas analyses. More than 2000 soil gas measurements
have been made to date using these devices over 4 years of observations. Measurement
accuracy of FPGAs is consistently high as validated via conventional bench-top gas
chromatography. Further, time series representations of paired CO2 and O2 measurement
under hardwood forests at the CCZO demonstrate the ability to observe and track seasonal
and climatic patterns belowground with this FPGA platform. Lastly, the ability to
analyze the apparent respiratory quotient, the ratio of apparent CO2 accumulation
divided by apparent O2 consumption relative to the aboveground atmosphere, indicates
a high degree of nuanced analyses are made possible with tools like FPGAs. In sum,
the accuracy and reliability of the FPGA platform for soil gas monitoring allows for
low-cost temporally extensive and spatially expansive field studies of deep soil respiration.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/21228Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1371/journal.pone.0220176Publication Info
Brecheisen, Zachary S; Cook, Charles W; Heine, Paul R; Ryang, Junmo; & Richter, Daniel
deB (2019). Development and deployment of a field-portable soil O2 and CO2 gas analyzer and sampler.
PloS one, 14(8). pp. e0220176. 10.1371/journal.pone.0220176. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/21228.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Zach Brecheisen
Associate In Research
Daniel D. Richter
Professor in the Division of Earth and Climate Science
Richter’s research and teaching links soils with ecosystems and the wider environment,
most recently Earth scientists’ Critical Zone. He focuses on how humanity is transforming
Earth’s soils from natural to human-natural systems, specifically how land-uses alter
soil processes and properties on time scales of decades, centuries, and millennia.
Richter's book, Understanding Soil Change (Cambridge University Press), co-authored
with his former PhD
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