On August 8th an Eddy Covariance (EC) flux tower was installed at Röbäcksdalen. This pilot project is a collaboration between Röbäcksdalen and Svartberget SITES stations, where the latter provides the tower, which is led by Matthias Peichl at the Department of Forest Ecology Management at SLU in Umeå. The location of the EC flux tower is on one of the larger fields at Röbäcksdalen station and is conveniently located near one of the SITES Spectral mast and between two of the sampling points in SITES Water. The land is used for feed production by the dairy farm operated by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science at SLU, which is included in SITES Röbäcksdalen.
This is the first flux tower located in an agricultural system of the Boreal region in northern Sweden. Thus, it will deliver unique data that is expected to provide novel insights into how the carbon dioxide (CO2) ecosystem balance and water flux (e.g. evapotranspiration) vary during crop rotations on dairy farms and, on a more long-term basis, how climate change, and in particular warmer winters, will affect the carbon and water cycle of agricultural fields in the far north. This installment will provide unique complementary data to the measurements made within the SITES Water and SITES Spectral Thematic Programs, and is also the northernmost installment of an EC flux tower on agricultural lands in Sweden.