Abstract
Carbon fluxes from agroecosystems contribute to the variability in the
carbon cycle and atmospheric [CO2]. In this study,
we used the Integrated Science Assessment Model (ISAM) equipped with a
spring wheat module to study carbon fluxes and their variability in
spring wheat agroecosystems of India. First, ISAM was run in the
site-scale mode to simulate the Gross Primary Production (GPP), Total
Ecosystem Respiration (TER), and Net Ecosystem Production (NEP) over an
experimental spring wheat site in the north India. Comparison with
flux-tower observations showed that the spring wheat module in ISAM can
match the observed flux patterns better than generic crop models. Next,
regional-scale runs were conducted to simulate carbon fluxes across the
country for the 1980-2016 period. Results showed that the fluxes vary
widely, primarily due to variations in planting dates across regions.
Fluxes peak earlier in the eastern and central parts of the country,
where the crops are planted earlier. All fluxes show statistically
significant increasing trends (p<.01) during the study period.
The GPP, Net Primary Production (NPP), Autotrophic respiration (Ra), and
Heterotrophic Respiration (Rh) increased at 1.272, 0.945, 0.579, 0.328,
and 0.366 TgC/yr2, respectively. Numerical experiments
were conducted to study how natural forcings like changing temperature
and [CO2] and agricultural management practices like
nitrogen fertilization and water availability could contribute to the
increasing trends. The experiments revealed that increasing [CO2],
nitrogen fertilization, and water added through irrigation contributed
to the increase of carbon fluxes, with nitrogen fertilization having the
strongest effect.