Ozone risk assessment for an Alpine larch forest in two vegetative seasons with different approaches: comparison of POD 1 and AOT40

Abstract

The upper vegetation belts like larch forests are supposed to be under great pressure because of climate change in the next decades. For this reason, the evaluation of the risks due to abiotic stressors like ozone is a key step. Two different approaches were used here: mapping AOT40 index by means of passive samplers and direct measurements of ozone deposition.

Measurements of ozone fluxes using the eddy-correlation technique were carried out for the first time over a larch forest in Paspardo (I) at 1750 m a.s.l. Two field campaigns were run: the first one in 2010 from July to October and the second one in the following year from June to September. Vertical exchange of ozone, energy, and momentum were measured on a tower platform at 26 m above ground level to study fluxes dynamics over this ecosystem. Since the tower was located on a gentle slope, an "ad hoc" methodology was developed to minimize the effects of the terrain inclination. The larch forest uptake was estimated by means of a two-layer model to separate the understorey uptake from the larch one. Even if the total ozone fluxes were generally high, up to 30–40 nmol O₃ m⁻² s⁻¹ in both years, the stomatal uptake by the larch forest was relatively low (around 15% of the total deposition).

Ozone risk was assessed considering the POD₁ received by the larch forest and the exposure index AOT40 estimated with both local data and data from the map obtained by the passive samplers monitoring.

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