Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) Equilibrium and Model Initialisation Methods: an Application to the Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) Model

Carbon (C) emissions from anthropogenic land use have accelerated climate change. To reduce C emissions, dynamic models can be used to assess the impact of human drivers on terrestrial C sequestration. Model accuracy requires correct initialisation, since incorrect initialisation can influence the results obtained. Therefore, we sought to improve the initialisation of a process-based SOC model, RothC, which can estimate the effect of climate and land-use change on SOC. The most common initialisation involves running the model until equilibrium (‘spin-up run’), when the SOC pools stabilise (method 1). However, this method does not always produce realistic results. At our experimental sites, the observed SOC was not at equilibrium after 10 years, suggesting that the commonly used spin-up initialisation method assuming equilibrium might be improved. In addition to method 1, we tested two alternative initialisations for RothC that involved adjusting the total or individual SOC pool equilibrium values by regulating the C input during the entire spin-up initialisation period (method 2) and initialising each SOC pool with recently measured SOC values obtained by SOC fractionation (method 3). Analysis of the simulation accuracy for each model initialisation, quantified using the root mean square error (RMSE), indicated that a variant of method 2 that involved adjusting the equilibrium total SOC to observed values (method 2-T) generally showed less variation in the individual SOC pools and total SOC. Furthermore, as total SOC is the sum of all SOC pools, and because total SOC data are more readily available than the individual SOC pool data, we conclude that method 2-T is best for initialising RothC.     

Distribution of Chlorinated Organic Pollutants in Harbor Sediments of Livorno (Italy): A Multivariate Approach to Evaluate Dredging Sediments

Dredging is a very important procedure for harbor management. InItaly the guidelines for the offshore dumping of dredged materials are issued by the Ministry of Environment. Theydescribed a few steps of dredging activities, such as thesampling strategy, but do not deal with limits or guide-valuesfor the chemical, physical and biological composition of theresulting sediments. The quality of dredged materials is mainlydependent on the presence of inorganic and organic pollutants.In particular, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and organo-chlorinated pesticides are seen as a high priority inmarine environment by international organizations because oftheir persistence, toxicity and bioaccumulation capacity.In this article the presence of some PCBs and organo-chlorinatedpesticides in sediment samples collected from the harbor ofLivorno (Northern Tyrrhenian Sea) was investigated. Theconcentration of HCHs, Aldrin, Chlordanes, DDEs, DDTs, and PCBsin 12 representative sites ranged between <1 g kg^–1and 95, 19, 32, 35, 107, and 111 g kg^–1, respectively.The application of univariate and multivariate statisticaltechniques, such as linear regression analysis and principalcomponent analysis, to the experimental data showed a differentdistribution of PCBs in the two sediment layers. On thecontrary, the vertical distribution of the other investigatedpollutants was more homogeneous and affected by randomvariability. The multivariate approach was an important tool to establish more rational criteria for the management of dredged materials.