PIEZAGRO

Since March 2017, the PIEZAGRO team benefit from the inclusion of 4 new members: Ines Marques (Master fellowship, IDL-FCUL), Alexandra Correia (ISA), Clara Pinto (INIAV-ISA) and Teresa Soares David (INIAV). Welcome to you all and thank you for your precious contribution to the PIEZAGRO project.

Desde Março de 2017, a equipa PIEZAGRO integrou 4 novos membros: a Ines Marques (bolseira Mestre, IDL-FCUL), a Alexandra Correia (ISA), a Clara Pinto (INIAV-ISA) e a Teresa Soares David (INIAV). Bemvindas a todas e obrigada pelo vosso contributo ao projeto PIEZAGRO.

Last week, a few members of the PIEZAGRO team went to Machoqueria do Grou (Coruche, Portugal) to select locals to install piezometric wells and to collect tree coring from Stone pines of a pure stand that had been planted in the 1960s. Two cores were sampled on each of 40 randomly selected trees from 4 blocs with two treatments. The dendrochronological information retrieved from the cores will be compared to the past climate and to the past fluctuation of the groundwater level, as well as the kernel production registered since 2002 on each tree.

A semana passada alguns membros da equipa PIEZAGRO deslocaram-se no campo na Machouqueira do Grou (Coruche, Portugal) para selecionar locais para a instalação de poços piezométricos e para recolher verrumadas de pinheiro manso num povoamento puro plantado na década de 1960. Duas verrumadas foram recolhidas em cada árvore dentro de 40 aleatoriamente selecionadas,  em 4 blocos com 2 tratamentos.  A informação dendrocronológica extraída das verrumadas será comparada tanto ao clima como ao nível piezométrico passados, assim como a produção de pinhões, registada desde 2002 em cada árvore do povoamento.

Three Members of the Piezagro team from the Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL) went to Orense in Spain to participate to the 8th EGU Leonardo Conference (25–27 October 2016)  and the 2nd International Congress on Water (27-28 October 2016). They presented 4 posters, which can be downloaded by clicking on the thumbnails above.

The “Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate” research group from IDL, well represented in Orense congresses, surely enjoyed their sunny journey in a beautiful region.

The Piezagro team is very pleased to announce that ICNF and FCUL recently signed a collaboration protocole for the PIEZAGRO project to share precious georeferenced data of the distribution of  agroforestry species from the most recent Potuguese forestry inventory. ICNF shared the data to FCUL in August. Those data are crucial  for the project to carefully select the geographical area for water balance modelling and for the selection of the location of stable isotope sampling. Stable isotope measurements will allow the identification of water sources for trees (rainfall, shallow or deep soil water) and the contribution of each water source in the system water balance.

Four communications will be presented by the PIEZAGRO team to the following congresses in Ourense, Spain in October 2016

• The 2nd International Congress on Water: Floods and Drought will take place the same week (27-28 October 2016) in Ourense, Spain.

• 8th EGU Leonardo Conference: From evaporation to precipitation: the atmospheric moisture transport , 25–27 October 2016

The PIEZAGRO kick off meeting took place on May 12, 2016 in the Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), Faculda de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FCUL). The main investigators envolved in the project (Cathy Kurz-Besson, Célia Gouveia and Rita Cardoso from IDL-FCUL as well as João Nascimento and Teresa de Melo from IST-Instituto Superior Técnico) gathered to discuss the details of the project and to define the priority tasks for each member to be accomplished until the following meeting to be held in late September 2016.

The PIEZAGRO project was funded by FCT (PTDC/AAG-REC/7046/2014) and initiated on May 2016. It aims at assessing the vulnerability risk for the agroforestry sector in South Portugal under climate change by evaluating the impact of the evolution of the piezometric level. This site was created on the 28th of June 2016 to share the objectives and progresses of the PIEZAGRO project with the Portuguese public and stakeholders. Please be patient while we are building the site, thank you !